CUBA: MORE ON THE OPPOSITION UNITY DOCUMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L HAVANA 000373

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/16/2017
TAGS: KDEM PHUM CU
SUBJECT: CUBA: MORE ON THE OPPOSITION UNITY DOCUMENT


Classified By: COM Michael E. Parmly: Reasons 1.4 (b/d)


1. (SBU) Pol-Econ Counselor followed up April 16 with "All
United" leader Vladimiro Roca on next steps for the "Unity
for Freedom" document that he and twelve other key dissidents
had signed on Friday April 13 and released to the media on
Sunday April 15. According to Roca, each of the original
signatories would walk around with the document and seek
additional signatures for a month, at which point the
democratic opposition would make public some new statement
regarding the broad support the initiative has won. Roca
added that the signers agreed they should release the
document first to Radio Marti, which would create an audience
on the island. Roca said that already some private citizens
that are not members of dissident groups have heard the story
on Radio Marti and called him to ask if they could sign.


2. (SBU) The following is the list of original signatories:

--Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello (Leader of Assembly to Promote
Civil Society)
--Vladimiro Roca
--Oswaldo Paya (Leader of Christian Liberation Movement)
--Hector Palacios (Recently freed political prisoner)
--Elizardo Sanchez (Cuban Commission for Human Rights)
--Guillermo Farinas (Independent journalist)
--Julia Cecilia Delgado (Liberal Party)
--Laura Pollan (Damas de Blanco)
--Bertha Soler (Damas de Blanco)
--Julia Nunez (Damas de Blanco)
--Rene Gomez Manzano (Assembly to Promote Civil Society)
--Miriam Leyva (Dama de Blanco and independent journalist)
--Oscar Espinosa Chepe (Freed Political Prisoner and
Economist)


3. (C) Roca also clarified that the document's distribution
to the media via his fax machine constituted its "rollout."
There would be no ceremony in Havana, although he expected
lots of follow-up questioning by the media of the various
signatories. Roca said he also expected retaliation by the
Castro regime, in the form of a smear campaign that makes the
document appear to be Made in the USA, accompanied by new
initiatives to try to split apart the opposition. As the
document itself states, there is no new umbrella group or
formal bloc that is now created by this sequence of events;
however, if and when circumstances arise that require a
unified voice from the opposition, they will regroup and act
in unison.


4. (C) Comment: As Roca, Martha Beatriz Roque and Oswaldo
Paya have told us and demonstrated by their recent actions,
the democratic opposition has matured. The Moratinos visit
was certainly a catalyst, but in our view only provided the
timing and the context for an outcome that was already
underway. Common appeals to release political prisoners, led
by the Damas de Blanco, came close to obtaining this kind of
consensus just three weeks ago, on the 4th anniversary of the
crackdown that put their husbands (The 75) in prison. This
new document is far better, in that it talks not only about
political prisoners, but also about democratization and
broader rights for the Cuban people.
PARMLY