|
On 28 August Cuban authorities reportedly deployed a riot squad and used tear gas in a raid on dissidents. According to dissident media reports, the raid was just one of several in the past month, including (but not limited to) attacks on the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White), the high profile group of female relatives and friends of imprisoned political dissidents. These dissident reports suggest an escalation in repression. Tear gas has not been used in recent times.
In contrast to the high profile crackdowns typical of his brother and predecessor Fidel, President Raúl Castro has adopted a strategy of continuous low-level repression, which operates below the radar of international observers but still serves its purpose in keeping Cuban dissidents from organising. However, an inevitable result of Cuba’s gradual economic opening is the ability of the dissidents to improve their networks. This may have put the wind up the authorities. President Castro is desperately trying to promote faster implementation of his limited economic liberalisation measures, but progress is slow. There is a real desire on the part of the authorities to prevent social dislocation as these measures, which include mass state layoffs, set in. Yet at the same time, this dislocation may become inevitable if the planned reforms are not implemented. The regime is eager to retain tight control over the whole process, but it’s a very difficult balancing act. Raúl Castro may, as some Cuba watchers suggest, partially look to Vietnam as the model for controlled economic liberalisation, but he certainly also appears to look to the tight political grip exercised by the Chinese communist-led government.
In recent years state repression has been carried out not by the Cuban police itself, but rather by organised groups of so-called ‘government supporters’, which in reality appear to be shadowy groups of hired thugs, who intimidate and harass dissidents, often violently. The police often ‘step in’ in a protective role (at protest marches by the Damas de Blanco for instance), thereby casting the official security forces as ‘neutral’. However this tactic is considered a purely cynical and rather clumsy PR effort by local dissidents.
The leader of the Damas de Blanco, Laura Pollán, was received on 30 August by the chancellor of the archdiocese of Havana, Ramón Suárez Porcari. She asked the church to intervene to end “the repression” of recent months in Santiago de Cuba and other locations in the province. Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who previously interceded with the government on behalf of the Damas and helped negotiate the release of well over 100 political prisoners in 2010, did not meet the women.
The illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), led by the veteran dissident Elizardo Sánchez, issued a statement on the same day alleging that in the five weeks since late July, the Cuban government had carried out “violent acts of political repression against women and other peaceful dissidents” in the province of Santiago de Cuba. “At least 65 men and women were arrested by the secret police…and suffered various acts of police brutality… At least 29 dissidents are still detained, some since August 26”, it noted.
The Damas are demanding the release of a further 60 political prisoners and so continue with their traditional peaceful weekly marches prior to Sunday mass. On 31 August the US State Department said it was “troubled by reports of increased violence by government-organized mobs against the Damas de Blanco in Havana and Santiago de Cuba in recent weeks” and called for “an immediate end to the harassment and violence”. It also called the use of these mobs “unconscionable”.
The Cuban singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés, who recently played in Miami, much to the fury of some hardline Cuban émigrés, protested against the treatment of the Damas in an open letter to a Spanish-language Miami daily, writing, "When I see ladies in white dresses on the street who are protesting but being harassed by men and women, I cannot help feeling ashamed and indignant… Even though I do not agree with them, I express solidarity with them”.
|
