AGENDA PARA LA TRANSICION PRESENTS FORMAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L HAVANA 000701 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/26/2013 TAGS: CU PGOV PREL PHUM SUBJECT: AGENDA PARA LA TRANSICION PRESENTS FORMAL COMPLAINT ABOUT MAY PRESS CAMPAIGN REF: A. HAVANA 391 ¶B. HAVANA 397 Classified By: COM Jonathan Farrar for Reason 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (U) Agenda para la Transicion (APT) leaders Martha Beatriz Roque (MBR) and Vladimiro Roca, flanked by other members of the APT leadership gave a press conference to mostly foreign press at Roca's house on August 26, to announce that they had presented a formal complaint (denuncia) to the Attorney General's office concerning the publicity campaign mounted against the opposition and USINT this past May 19, 20 and 21 (reftels). According to MBR and Roca, the basis of the complaint is that the government, specifically certain employees of MINREX, including FM Perez Roque and North America director Josefina Vidal, and staff of the television program Mesa Redonda had violated Cuban law by making public intercepted correspondence and telephone conversations. Roca was at pains to point out that the government has the right to read correspondence or tap phones provided there is an open criminal case involved, which did not happen to apply in this case, but that at no time may material obtained by those means be made public. MBR also stressed that the document was a denuncia (in that sense a criminal complaint) and not simply a querella (in that sense a civil complaint),because those accused had committed criminal violations of Cuban law. ¶2. (U) In the following Q and A session, MBR noted that all the evidence needed to pursue a case was publicly available in the transcripts of the Mesa Redonda television program and the Communist Party daily "Granma," which published the same information a day later. She added that it was clear from the pieces presented that they had been cobbled together from intercepted conversations and correspondence going back 3 years, with the clear implication that the presentation had been a fabrication as well. For its part, the press, especially the Telesur correspondent pushed MBR to say whether or not it were true that she had contacts with the U.S. Interests Section or Santiago Alvarez, a Cuban-American accused of terrorism by the GOC. MBR refused to answer that question, and Roca commented that it is irrelevant whether there were meetings or not, or whether the complete story had been fabricated or not, or whether or not there was a criminal case that would have allowed for legal interception of communications. The only relevant point was that contained in the denuncia: that the revelation of information obtained by clandestine means is a violation of the law. ¶3. (U) As noted by both Roca and MBR in their responses to questions, there is no expectation that the GOC will take any action on their complaint. They simply want to go on record that the government violates its own laws. ¶4. (C) COMMENT: Vlad and MBR are certainly right that the GOC will take no action on their complaint. Unfortunately, their effort probably will go unnoticed on the island as the local media, which no one pays any attention to anyway, will ignore it completely. Nevertheless, the press conference may have some impact across the sea if it is reported accurately in the European media, which was well represented. End Comment. FARRAR