Havana/Almost six months of tension and several attempts at schism between high officials have not been enough to resolve the crisis of Cuban Freemasonry. On June 3, the Ministry of Justice intervened for the second time in the discussion with a drastic measure: invalidating the decision of the Grand Lodge of Cuba and the Supreme Council for the 33rd Degree – the two most important bodies of the fraternity. who had expelled last March the then Grand Master, Mario Alberto Urquía Carreño, responsible for the theft of $19,000 from his office.
As reported to 14ymedio A Masonic source who asked not to be identified, Urquía Carreño “is already in his office” since this Wednesday. The ministry, however, falls into a kind of trap: he recognizes the Masonic laws, although he believes that they were broken, a card that the high Masonic officials will know how to play in his favor.
The ministry sent a document to Sovereign Grand Commander José Ramón Viñas Alonso – the highest Masonic authority, along with the current Grand Master, Juan Alberto Kessel, and accuser of Urquía Carreño –, which was disclosed this Thursday by the digital Cubanet. The text, signed by the director of Associations, Miriam García, vindicates the right of the ministry to intervene through “inspections” in Freemasonry if it considers that it fails to comply with what is established by Cuban law.
They also reveal that Urquía Carreño is not accused of any charge before the Prosecutor’s Office.
He also argues that the Grand Lodge of Cuba and the Supreme Council for the 33rd Degree are, for legal purposes, separate institutions in the registry of Associations, and considers that there were “violations” in the treatment of Urquía Carreño. The former Grand Master, they emphasize, can be protected by Cuban law even if Masonic law condemns him.
They also reveal that Urquía Carreño is not accused of any charge before the Prosecutor’s Office and that the complaint for the theft of money in his office of the Grand Lodge “was concluded as a case without merit.” In fact, they consider his expulsion from the Upper House, which met last March, to be serious, when hundreds of Freemasons prevented him from entering the session with shouts of “get out, thief.”
The Ministry of Justice alleges that Urquía Carreño was not treated legally by the Upper House, since a Masonic trial was not held, nor was his testimony heard properly, they say. The Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Recognition that regulates relations between the two high Masonic bodies was violated, by virtue of a too light interpretation of the law of fraternity, they say.
Viñas is, at all times, the repository of the ministry’s reprimands, since he considers him responsible for the treatment that the officials of the Supreme Council gave to Urquía Carreño – whom the document refers to colloquially as “Mario Alberto”–. In the opinion of the ministry, it is the ordinary law that must define the guilt or not of the former Grand Master, which is why it considers invalid any decision that the Freemasons make without the Police proving that Urquía Carreño stole the money from the Grand Lodge.
In the opinion of the ministry, it is the ordinary law that must define the guilt or not of the former Grand Master
Urquía Carreño “must have all his Masonic rights and procedural guarantees respected,” concludes the text, which states that although the ministry cannot “judge” a member of the fraternity, it does have to guarantee the “legal system” and enforce compliance. the “laws of the country”.
Last April, Urquía Carreño himself published a document claiming to have received approval from the Ministry of Justice to continue exercising his position as Grand Master. It announced what the Directorate of Associations now confirms: the invalidity, under Cuban law, of the decisions made by the highest officials of Cuban Freemasonry in recent months. Then, the also owner of a MSME The construction company alleged that a “coup d’état” had been carried out against him and announced that he would go to recover his office in the historic Grand Lodge building, on Carlos III Street in Havana.
Among the measures taken by the Ministry of Justice “to avoid further non-compliance,” according to Urquía Carreño, were the blocking of bank accounts, the prohibition of carrying out activities and issuing official documents, and the suspension of the Grand Lodge – but not of the lodges. individuals in the country – from the registry of Associations.
Until the Ministry of Justice gives the go-ahead, said Urquía Carreño, it is best to “not continue making decisions” and warned that, if its authority was contradicted, there would be “more drastic and harmful measures” because – as the published document demonstrated this Thursday – for the ruling party, the Grand Master continues to be him.
These months of “discredit in the entire profane and Masonic sphere” – the phrase is Urquía Carreño himself – began last January, when the Grand Lodge reported at the Zanja police station, in Central Havana, the loss of 19,000 dollars that were stolen from Urquía Carreño’s safe. As a result of the event, 18 grand masters from across the island demanded the “immediate resignation” of the high position, which the accused refused.
“This Grand Master cannot allow a group of members of the Supreme Council to take control of the Grand Lodge and he will never do so, even if all the insults and misrepresentations that have been generated and are still being plotted behind my back fall on my person… “This Grand Master will never bow down,” he said in one of his statements.
Viñas, he assures, “does not listen to them”, so that the regime has been forced to intervene in an “unprecedented” action, at least publicly
As stated to 14ymedio its source in the Grand Lodge, the “interference” that state institutions have committed against the fraternity on the Island is something “unprecedented. “Since he came to power, Fidel Castro set his eyes on the Freemasons and since then the Government and State Security have put their hands in the internal management of the lodges,” through “advice” to their senior officials. .
Viñas, he assures, “does not listen to them,” so the regime has been forced to intervene in an “unprecedented” action, at least public. It happened once, but discreetly, when the director of the Office of Religious Affairs of the Communist Party, Caridad Diego, expressly vetoed a candidate for the Supreme Council: the academic and political prisoner Gustavo Pardo.
After the latest events, Cuban Freemasonry not only risks greater infiltration and surveillance by State Security – which, according to several Freemasons, is the hand behind the crisis – but also risks its own survival in the face of a Government that He has never looked favorably on its existence.
