Cuba car crash fallout turns focus on dissidents' funds

1 August 2012 Last updated at 10:50 GMT

Cuba car crash fallout turns focus on dissidents' funds
By Sarah Rainsford BBC News, Havana

It is just over a week since Oswaldo Paya, one of Cuba's most prominent
dissidents, was killed in a car crash.

In that time, the authorities have gone from fending off his family's
allegations of foul play to parading proof that he received foreign
funding for his political activities.

Communist-run Cuba bans all opposition parties and routinely dismisses
vocal government critics as mercenaries, sponsored to subvert the
revolution.

But the latest revelation about Mr Paya receiving overseas money appears
to have sparked a new government campaign to discredit dissenters and
warn them that Cuba will not permit any kind of Arab Spring to spread here.

It began on Monday when one of the survivors of the car crash, Jens Aron
Modig, was brought to speak to journalists at an official news
conference in Havana.

Mr Modig is a member of Sweden's Christian Democratic Party.
Infographic from the Cuban authorities showing the location of the car
accident Cuban officials insisted all along that the crash was an accident

Still in police custody, he admitted he had travelled to Cuba twice to
deliver money to Mr Paya and "share experiences" with young political
activists.

Both he and - in a video played to the press - the driver of the car,
Angel Carromero, confirmed that the crash which killed Mr Paya was an
accident and their vehicle was not forced off the road.

Mr Carromero, a member of the youth branch of Spain's governing Popular
Party, is still being held as an investigation into possible murder
charges continues.

After a week behind bars, Mr Modig was promptly released and flew home
the next day.

Foreign funding

Cuba has been busy using his statement to make its point about
dissidents ever since.

"They are vulgar agents paid, supplied and instructed by the government
of the United States and its allies. They betray their country for
cash," was the view of a lengthy editorial in the Communist Party
newspaper Granma on Tuesday.

"Paya's death is tragic, but it led to a revelation that undermines his
standing," believes Stephen Wilkinson, editor of the International
Journal of Cuban Studies.

Many dissidents argue that they accept foreign support because they are
barred from jobs in a predominantly state-controlled economy; others see
no reason to refuse help if they are acting according to their own
principles.

But Mr Paya always made a point of his independence. In particular he
refused funding from the US, as Miami has long been the launch pad for
attempts by Cuban exiles to oust the Castros from power.

"The fact there was a conspiracy by the right-wing in Sweden and Spain
to assist him is very significant. It delegitimises the movement
completely and the Cubans will go heavy on that," Mr Wilkinson says.

Henrik Ehrenberg, a spokesman for Sweden's Christian Democratic Party
told the BBC that any cash carried by its members to dissidents is
"private money".

But Mr Ehrenberg added that "quite a number of Christian Democrats" had
visited Cuba to show "moral support and solidarity" for Mr Paya's civil
rights movement.

Cuba sees such things differently.

Mr Modig's confession has sparked a wave of official reports of what the
government styles as foreign-backed plots to foment an uprising.

On Tuesday night, TV viewers were shown excerpts from interviews with
young Mexican men who recounted being sent to Cuba in March to disrupt a
visit by Pope Benedict.

The Mexicans named well-known Cuban dissidents they said they had been
instructed to contact and call "onto the streets (… to) take over
churches to demonstrate against the government and show that it is
oppressing Cuban citizens".

The report alleged that they were recruited by Cuban exiles in Miami but
arrested before the Pope arrived in Havana. Their confessions were
apparently held back for an opportune moment.

Now it all appears intended to warn supporters of Cuba's opposition
activists that their "activity against the constitutional order" is well
known.
'Not Libya'

But the strong reaction may also suggest a degree of concern.

As conflict rages in Syria, Cuba has stressed what it sees as yet more
foreign interference in a sovereign state: a popular uprising provoked
by influence-hungry western powers, unrelated to any grievances on the
ground.

And just last week President Raul Castro himself warned that "groups"
backed by Cuba's ideological enemy, the US, were attempting to provoke
in Cuba "what happened in Libya and what they are trying to do now in
Syria".

"Our vocation is peaceful," Mr Castro stressed, "but we will defend our
people."

Tuesday's Granma editorial talked of attempts to deliver 10,000 mobile
phones to the island and distribute information about the Arab uprisings
online.

"They are probably worried about that," opposition activist Antonio
Rodiles, who was detained at Mr Paya's funeral and held for 24 hours
before being released without charge.

But Mr Rodiles believes Cuba is far from any similar uprising.

It is a view shared by diplomats in Havana. Internet access remains very
limited even in the capital - a recent seminar on using social networks
like Facebook and Twitter attracted just a few dozen activists - and
dissident groups, they say, remain divided and heavily infiltrated by
state security.

"I don't think they [the authorities] are overly concerned. I think they
know what's going on and they have a handle on it," argues Dr Wilkinson.

That is certainly the message people here are being sent this week, as
Cuba affirms that the death of Oswaldo Paya was an accident and works to
discredit his political demands.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19075435