Communist Spies For Castro - Cuba Unmasks Spies Among Dissidents *** HAVANA - For years they were familiar faces in Cuba's opposition movement: the elderly man with a black beret, the reporter who used a cane, the efficient secretary. But last week, after the government locked up 75 of its most vocal critics, their real identities became known: government spies. "The True Faces of the Nation" is what the Communist Party daily Granma called them: as many as a dozen men and women who faked opposition to Fidel Castro's government to gather facts and figures about the dissidents.
Several of the undercover agents were so trusted by American diplomats that they had permission to use computers whenever they wished. The unmasking underscored the efficiency of the Cuban government's intelligence services and sent a strong message to diplomats and dissidents alike. "No one in Cuba is sucking their thumb," Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said last week, defending the crackdown. "What we have said here is just a part of what we know." ***
Cuba Dissident Case Revives U.S. Debate *** HAVANA - Cuba's accusations about dissidents in the pay of Washington have revived a long-standing debate over whether using U.S. government funds to support the Cuban opposition does more harm than good. Some $20 million has been paid by the U.S. Agency for International Development to U.S.-based groups working to end communist rule in the island. They run Web sites, distribute pro-democracy books and pamphlets, and even provide food and medicine to the families of political prisoners. But some veteran activists say the money only gives Fidel Castro's government ammunition to persecute dissidents, like the 75 sentenced in recent days for allegedly conspiring with the United States. ***