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HAVANA, March 19 (Ernesto Roque y Fara Armenteros, UPECI / www.cubanet.org)
- Cuban State Security officers fanned out across Havana starting at about 4
p.m. tuesday and arrested at least 20 dissidents, according to the latest
reports, after searching their homes and confiscating books, papers, computers
and cameras.
Independent journalist Claudia Márquez Linares said 10 State Security
officers rushed into her apartment at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday and spent the next 9
hours searching through it. Márquez said they confiscated about 150
books, 50 files of her papers, all the files for the Democratic Liberal Party of
Cuba, of which her husband is president, 38 diskettes, a video camera, a
computer and a printer, and a few sheets with signatures for the Varela project.
At the end, past 1:00 a.m., they arrested her husband, Osvaldo Alfonso Valdés,
and told her to present herself at Villa Marista, the State Security
headquarters, Wednesday morning.
Villa Marista, where the more than 20 dissidents are being held, is
surrounded by an unprecedented number of armed guards, and even more police and
paramilitaries in civilian clothes.
The measures capped weeks of rising tensions between Cuban authorities and
U.S. diplomats in Havana. During the last two days, denunciations of the chief
of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, James Cason, in the nightly political
program on Cuban TV turned more shrill.
At the end of February, Fidel Castro himself threatened to close the U.S.
interests section in Havana as a result of Cason's activities. Castro was
incensed because Cason had visited prominent dissident Martha Beatriz Roque at
her home.
In general, Cason is well disposed toward dissidents, offering them help,
visiting them and inviting them to his residence, most recently last Friday,
when he hosted a meeting of about 30 dissidents.
Usually arrests like these are not mentioned in the Cuban press, but in a
rare acknowledgment the official Communist Party daily Granma said about the
day's events: "...several dozen individuals directly linked to the
conspiratorial activities of Mr James Cason, have been arrested by the
appropriate authorities and will stand trial in our courts of justice."
Versión original
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