FARINAS: CUBAN GOVT PUNISHING 4 STATE SECURITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HAVANA 000088 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE DEPT FOR WHA/CCA AND DRL FOR BARRY LOWENKRON E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/30/2017 TAGS: PHUM KDEM SOCI CU SUBJECT: FARINAS: CUBAN GOVT PUNISHING 4 STATE SECURITY OFFICERS REF: 06 HAVANA 21636 HAVANA 00000088 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Buddy Williams for Reason 1.4(d). ¶1. (C) Summary: The Cuban Government has punished four State Security officials in the wake of a violent attack that left two Villa Clara dissidents bruised and bloodied, according to human rights activist Guillermo Farinas. Farinas, quoting Interior Ministry sources, says the GOC forced two State Security officials into retirement and ordered house arrest for two others implicated in the October 2006 beatings of Orestes Suarez Torres and Nancy Gonzalez Garcia. Farinas said another dissident whose case has long been handled by one of the four State Security officials was told on January 28 that someone else would be handling the case. Farinas' assertions have not yet been confirmed, but we are inclined to believe him. The punishments could have everything to do with the emergence of an alleged videotape showing uniformed police officers beating dissidents on a street in Ranchuelo, Villa Clara. End Summary. ¶2. (C) The Cuban Government has punished four State Security officials in Villa Clara province following a brutal October 10, 2006 attack on a dissident couple, according to human rights activist Guillermo Farinas. Quoting sources within the Interior Ministry, which oversees State Security, Farinas told us on January 30 that Col. Freddy Castillo Veliz and Lt. Col. Omar Fidel Rodriguez were forced into retirement, while Maj. Vladimir Ernesto Mendes Mauad and Captain Jorge Luis Ojito were given house arrest, and told to await further judgment. The four State Security officials allegedly planned and authorized the hour-long beating (reftel) of Orestes Suarez Torres, 53, and his wife, Nancy Gonzalez Garcia, 39, among the most insidious human rights violations in Cuba in 2006. Suarez and Gonzalez operate an independent library in Ranchuelo, Villa Clara. FEARSOME BEATING -------------- ¶3. (C) On the day of the attack, Suarez and Gonzalez attended a peaceful gathering at a dissident's home in the city of Santa Clara. Outside, a large crowd of communist militants formed. When Suarez and Gonzalez left the building and walked toward a bus stop, a dozen militants grabbed them and forced them into two vehicles. During the 50-minute ride to Ranchuelo, militants repeatedly pounded Suarez, a welder, and Gonzalez, a cigar roller. Both received black eyes, cuts and deep bruises. Suarez also suffered broken ribs. When the vehicles rolled to a stop in front of the Communist Party headquarters in Ranchuelo, GOC officials informed the couple that they would not be allowed to leave the city for a week. Then, according to Suarez and Gonzalez, who met with Poloff a week after the attack, a number of uniformed National Revolutionary Police officers punched the dissidents and forced them to say, "Long Live Fidel." CAMERA ROLLING -------------- ¶4. (C) What was not known until now, said Farinas, is that someone in the crowd of 500 or 600 onlookers in front of the CP headquarters videotaped the beating. The taping was done by "some residents of the United States who were visiting Ranchuelo" at the time, said Farinas, an independent journalist who spent more than half of 2006 carrying out a hunger strike for internet freedom. He added that the tape is currently somewhere in the United States. STATE SECURITY OFFICIAL TAKEN OFF CASE -------------- ¶5. (C) Farinas said a dissident whose case was being handled by one of the four punished State Security officials, Maj. Vladimir Ernesto Mendez Mauad, was told on January 28 that the Major would no longer be the dissident's point of contact. Farinas said that a State Security Captain named Pedro Perez made this clear in a visit with the dissident in question, shoemaker Roberto Carlos Perez Garcia. (Perez Garcia, a member of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, told us on January 20 that he would like to join his visa-lottery-winner wife in the United States, but that the GOC is denying him exit permission. He quoted Mendez as saying, "You're going to have to pay for taking part in the HAVANA 00000088 002.2 OF 002 (May 20, 2005) Assembly.") COMMENT -------------- ¶6. (C) Farinas has excellent sources, and if his account is to be believed - and we're inclined to think it should - we could be witnessing the rarest of events: MinInt's sanctioning of State Security officials. Problem is, this raises more questions than it answers. What does the GOC stand to gain by booting two senior State Security officials, whose "enforcers" help keep the regime in power? Has popular disgust in Ranchuelo over the attack increased to the extent that the GOC felt it necessary to sacrifice a few State Security officials in order to prevent a potential grass-roots protest? Are the punishments aimed at blunting international criticism of the attack, if and when the alleged videotape surfaces? Or are they aimed at the reshuffled U.S. Congress, ten of whose members visited Havana in December and were briefed in detail on the Ranchuelo attack? Does this incident suggest that State Security no longer has the power and impunity it enjoyed while Fidel was calling the shots? ¶7. (C) No se sabe. (It's unknown.) But we know enough about State Security's dark side - pummelling dissidents, organizing "acts of repudiation," dividing families and spying on Cubans of all types - to doubt that the regime seeks a kinder, gentler political police force. A purge of four State Security officials would have to be ordered at a very high level of government, and for a serious mistake. That mistake, in our view, might have been allowing uniformed Cuban police officers to be videotaped punching Nancy Gonzalez in the face on a Ranchuelo street. Such video - which we have not seen - could expose as a lie the regime's position that acts of repudiation are spontaneous acts by ordinary and patriotic Cubans, with no government participation. WILLIAMS