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Cuba Claims U.S. Envoy Took Cash To Dissidents

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The Associated Press

Published: May 20, 2008

HAVANA - Cuba on Monday accused America's top diplomat in the country of ferrying funds to dissidents on the island from a man it characterizes as a terrorist.

E-mails and other correspondence suggest U.S. Interests Section chief Michael Parmly was asked to carry cash from Miami to dissidents in Havana, Cuban authorities said. In one e-mail, activist Martha Beatriz Roque urged her nephew in Miami to give "letters" to Parmly. Cuban officials contend the word "letters" was code for cash, but they gave no proof money was involved.

Cuba said the funds came from Miami-based Fundacion Rescate Juridica, headed by Santiago Alvarez, a Cuban-American businessman once convicted in the United States of conspiring to collect military-style weapons to overthrow Cuba's government.

Alvarez is serving a 10-month prison term for refusing to testify against Luis Posada Carriles, the alleged mastermind of bombings of a Cuban jetliner and hotels, and of assassination attempts on former President Fidel Castro.

"This reveals the connection between the counterrevolutionaries in Cuba and the terrorists," Cuban Foreign Ministry official Josefina Vidal Ferreira said.

She asked U.S. authorities to conduct "deep investigations," and said Cuba is "waiting for the government of the United States to take appropriate measures and adhere to international protocol."

The United States and Cuba do not have diplomatic relations, maintaining interests sections, not embassies, in each other's capitals.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he was not aware of the specific accusations against Parmly, but insisted that "we are not violating international law."

"The U.S. government has programs to provide humanitarian assistance to people that are essentially forgotten by the Cuban government," McCormack said. "We do not stand in the way of private groups doing that as well."

Cuban officials showed messages they said were from a Yahoo e-mail account in Roque's name that mention monthly payments from Alvarez's organization of $1,500 to Roque and $200 to dissident Jose Luis Garcia Perez.

Rescate Juridica also arranged $2,400 for the Ladies in White, an opposition group whose members include dissident Laura Pollan, officials said.

Authorities promised to present more evidence supporting their accusations against U.S. diplomats in coming days. The allegations come two weeks after President Bush spoke to Roque, Pollan and Garcia Perez in a video conference at the Interests Section.

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