Cuban dissidents holed up in church change demands
The dissidents, holed up in the church since Tuesday, want the release
of political prisoners and improvement in salaries and pensions..
By Juan Carlos Chavez
jcchavez@elnuevoherald.com
A group of 13 Cuban government opponents, who have been holed up inside
a Havana church since Tuesday to demand political and social changes,
say authorities have forbidden food deliveries for the occupants.
"We have been here two days and they have cut the food supply since
Wednesday. We have not been able to eat anything," Vladimir Calderón
Fariñas, leader of the group and director of the Republican Party of
Cuba, told El Nuevo Herald on Thursday. "The political police has not
allowed anyone to bring food to the place."
Calderón, 47, spoke by telephone from inside the occupied Minor Basilica
of the Church of our Lady of Charity in downtown Havana. He said the
dissidents had expected to meet Thursday morning with a government
representative to discuss the situation, but the official "never
arrived" at the church, Calderón said.
The demands of the church occupants — made two weeks before Pope
Benedict XVI's two-day visit to Cuba — include the release of political
prisoners and a substantial improvement in salaries and pensions for
retirees. The dissidents also are demanding freedom of expression and of
movement, open doors to information and participation in a discussion
for a road map toward a law-based state.
On Wednesday, the group had a 30-minute meeting with Ramón Suárez
Polcari, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Havana, who said a government
official would talk to them before noon Thursday.
The demands of the peaceful protesters coincide with an intense
controversy within the ranks of dissidents regarding the Pope's March
26-29 trip and whether the visit would help at all in improving the
status of individual freedoms in Cuba.
Calderón said that the parish priest of the Lady of Charity church, the
Rev. Roberto Betancourt, has been very gentle and attentive to the needs
of the group, which includes a 71-year-old woman and an 82-year-old man.
The opponents have access to the church's hygienic facilities, as well
as showers and running water.
Similar occupations have taken place elsewhere in Cuba.
In Holguín, a city located in the eastern area of the island, a very
different situation took place on Wednesday at the St. Isidore Cathedral
. There, Bishop Emilio Aranguren ejected at least 18 dissidents who also
had occupied the church to make political demands. Witnesses said that
Aranguren slapped away a cellular phone from the hands of a dissident
who was reporting the occupation.
The occupation in Holguín lasted about eight hours. During that time,
church authorities cut the electricity and denied help to the
protesters, dissidents reported.
In a telephone interview with El Nuevo Herald, well-known dissident
Guillermo Fariñas, who won the European Parliament's Sakharov Award in
2010, expressed concern over Aranguren's behavior.
"Such behavior draws my attention as well as other attitudes by
Aranguren, especially when Orlando Zapata Tamayo's mother was making a
pilgrimage to her son's tomb," Fariñas said from his home in Santa
Clara. "Aranguren used to be a very rebellious bishop, but for a few
years now I have been hearing things that contradict the perception we had."
The Catholic Church in Cuba denounced the protests, claiming that it was
part of a planned strategy to create "critical situations" at the nation
prepares for the papal visit.
In a statement released Wednesday, Orlando Marquez, spokesman for
Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of Havana, described the act as
"unlawful and irresponsible." He warned that "nobody has the right to
convert the temple into political trenches." The statement was published
Thursday in the official newspaper Granma.
In early March, Marquez himself had warned the church ran the "risk" of
facing political pressure to the Pope's visit.
Inside Cuba, the occupation of the church was criticized by some members
of the dissident movement. Others expressed some support for the demands.
Berta Soler, a spokeswoman for the Ladies in White, said that while the
group "respected" the actions of the 13, she stressed their methods were
not the same. On Thursday, Soler and other women of the Ladies in White
group left several CDs on the escalation of the Cuban government
repression against dissidents in the offices of the Archdiocese of
Havana and the Vatican embassy. The discs contain reports and testimony
about repression to be delivered to the Pope during his visit.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/15/2696231/cuban-dissidents-hold-up-in-church.html
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