"The government is waging a dirty war against us. It's what the KGB used to do, print whole books to discredit people like Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov and Havel," he said.
Infiltrated
The depth to which Cuba's small dissident movement had been penetrated astonished European diplomats who no longer know whom to trust in Havana.
Even after death, Cubans can have their reputations tarnished as moles, as was the case of Jesus Yanez Pelletier, a former Castro aide who later became one of his best-known opponents.
In 2001, on the first anniversary of his death, Yanez's widow was shocked by the arrival of state security agents at the graveside carrying a wreath in a posthumous recognition of decades of duty infiltrating dissident circles.
Cubans have been asked to spy on their families and friends. Eliseo Alberto, the son of noted Cuban poet Eliseo Diego, confessed in a book entitled Report on Myself that he agreed to inform on intellectuals and artists visiting his father.
Neighborhood watch groups called Committees to Defend the Revolution, found on most blocks, have long been the eyes and ears of the government, creating a climate of suspicion and distrust between Cubans, said Roman Catholic priest Jose Corado.
"People have two faces and censor themselves out of fear. They think they are alone and that their neighbor is with the government," Corado said in his parish church in the eastern city of Santiago. "This is pure 1984."
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