Top U.S. diplomat ferried cash to dissident: Cuba

By Jeff Franks

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba on Monday accused the United States' top diplomat in Havana of ferrying money from a private anti-Castro exile group in Miami to a dissident in the Cuban capital.

Officials disclosed e-mails they said showed Michael Parmly, head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, acting as a go-between for at least one payment from a group headed by Santiago Alvarez, a Cuban American jailed in the United States on weapons charges, to Cuban dissident Martha Beatriz Roque.

Parmly was "a facilitator of payments, of contacts and remittances from a terrorist based in Miami to counter-revolutionaries in Cuba," Josefina Vidal of the Cuban Foreign Ministry said at a news conference.

She described his behavior as "scandalous" and called for the U.S. government to investigate illegal activities at the Interests Section. The U.S. does not have an embassy in Cuba because the two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations.

A diplomat at the Interests Section said, "It is long-standing U.S. policy to provide humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people, specifically to provide assistance to families of political prisoners who are treated poorly by their own government.

"This assistance has no political purpose, but is intended to address the day-to-day needs of families who are struggling to survive in the current system," the diplomat said.

The U.S. government openly provides federally-funded support for dissident activities, which Cuba considers an illegal act.

But this is the first time Cuba has charged the Interests Section with funneling money from a private exile group directly to dissidents.