CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Caught-on-tape dissident admits falling into
'trap'
Human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez
acknowledges getting a medal from the secret police.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Tue, Sep. 16, 2003.
Cuban human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez
admitted Monday that he received a medal from
the secret police but insisted that the ceremony
caught on tape and made public last week was part
of a government campaign to smear opposition leaders
and silence reform-minded thinkers within its
ranks.
''I fell in a trap and for that I assume full
responsibility,'' Sánchez told The Herald
in a telephone interview from his Havana home.
Sánchez said he attended the videotaped
ceremony in 1998 hoping that the agents of the
state security department that he was meeting
with -- whom he assumed were backed by reformers
within the government -- would fulfill their earlier
promise to release several political prisoners.
But after the videotape was released ''the reformist
sector within the government has been relegated
and silenced by the hard-liners within the regime,''
he added.
One of the communist-ruled island's most respected
opposition activists, Sánchez was the focus
of a government-sponsored book published last
month claiming that he had been a snitch. He has
repeatedly denied collaborating with the government,
at times saying that he had received only a pen
from the state security agents and now telling
The Herald that he may have drunk too much during
the medal ceremony. He said he recalled the medal
ceremony only after watching the video on Cuban
television.
Sánchez said he had held dozens of meetings
over the years with the security agents in an
effort to resolve the fate of Cuba's political
prisoners, and was not surprised when he was awarded
the medal.
''They put medals on everybody,'' said Sánchez,
59, adding that he returned his medal the same
day he received it. "For me, it had no significance.
I've been part of the resistance for more than
30 years and will continue with my work.''
Calling the videotape and book part of a ''dirty
war,'' Sánchez asserted that the government's
allegations that the medal he received was intended
as thanks for his betrayal of other dissidents
and the identification of three CIA officials
in a visiting American delegation, was a ''colossal
lie.'' ''I've never compromised anyone,'' he said.
"On every one of those occasions, only I
went to hell to meet with Satan.''
A few drinks
Sánchez said that against his better judgement
he accepted a few drinks during the ceremony,
which the government said took place Oct. 28,
1998. But he acknowledged that the meeting was
fruitless because no prisoners were released.
A former university teacher of Marxism, Sánchez
broke with the government in the late 1960s and
became active in human rights. In 1987, he founded
the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National
Reconciliation, which he still heads.
Sánchez said his first round of conversations
with government agents began in 1987, when two
state security officials visited him with a proposal
for a discreet dialogue.
"They wanted me to talk to them about problems
before going to the [foreign] media.''
Sánchez said he accepted but insisted
that he was always transparent in his efforts
to help political prisoners, and pointed to his
1988 public announcement that his commission had
"regular work sessions with high-ranking
officials of state security.''
At the time, Sánchez was quoted as saying
that the "relationships were necessary for
the solution to the current problems.''
On Aug. 6, 1989, Sánchez was arrested
on charges of ''spreading false information against
international peace.'' He was sentenced to two
years in prison and was released in 1991.
He said he did not hear again from the government
until 1997, when the same agent who pinned the
medal on him -- identified by the government as
Interior Ministry Col. Arístides Gómez
-- came to his home to offer a new olive branch:
"He said they wanted to talk to avoid public
scandals and protests.''
Again, Sánchez said, he accepted.
''In 97, like in 87, the central theme of our
discussion had to do with the situation of political
prisoners. I was working toward trying to get
their liberation,'' he said.
Door open
Sánchez said he had no regrets about his
meetings with the government and will leave the
door open to dialogue, "because we have no
weapons other than reason, truth and word of honor.''
His only concern now is ''the distraction this
has generated, that the public might lose sight
of the grave problems that exist in Cuba,'' he
said, "that they might dance to the tune
the government is playing.''
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