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By Traci Carl, Associated Press Writer. Fri Apr 25, 2:24 PM
ET. Yahoo!
News
MEXICO CITY - Carlos Fuentes called Cuba a "suffocating dictatorship."
Jose Saramago said Fidel Castro "cheated his dreams."
Shocked at Cuba's recent crackdown on dissent, many leftist intellectuals
and authors find themselves criticizing a government they spent years
applauding.
The backlash appears to have caught Cuba off guard and forced officials to
defend themselves against not only their foes — but also their longtime
friends.
For years, the communist government appeared to be relaxing its tough stance
toward critics. Encouraged, even Republican U.S. lawmakers were calling to lift
more than four decades of U.S. imposed sanctions.
But that changed earlier this month, when Cuba ordered a firing squad to
execute three men accused of terrorism in the unsuccessful hijacking of a ferry
full of passengers. The men were trying to get to the United States.
Days before, Cuba sentenced 75 dissidents, many of them independent
journalists or directors of independent libraries, to prison terms of up to 28
years. Cuba accused them of working with U.S. diplomats to undermine Castro's
government — a charge the dissidents and the State Department have denied.
The crackdown was condemned around the globe.
Sweden warned the actions could harm Cuba's prospects for a better
relationship with the European Union, while Canada and Italy sent letters of
protest to Castro.
But some of the strongest criticism came from Cuba's supporters, who have
stuck by the government's 44-year rule despite complaints about its human rights
record.
"Must they learn the bad habits of the enemy they are fighting?"
wrote Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, who once praised Castro as a "symbol
of national dignity."
"The death penalty is never justified, no matter where it is applied."
Fuentes, a Mexican novelist and longtime Cuba supporter, was even more
disillusioned. He lumped Bush and Castro together and declared himself against
both. Castro, he said, needs "his American enemy to justify his own
failings."
"As a Mexican, I wish for my country neither the dictates of Washington
on foreign policy, nor the Cuban example of a suffocating dictatorship," he
wrote in a letter published in Mexico City's Reforma newspaper.
He wasn't alone. Saramago, a Portuguese writer who won the 1998 Nobel Prize
for literature and considered himself a close friend of Castro, said Cuba "has
lost my confidence, damaged my hopes, cheated my dreams."
Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who lives part-time in
Cuba, has been silent on the issue. But his magazine, Cambio, published an
article saying "few other repressive waves have left a government so
isolated and rejected."
The government responded by publishing rebukes in the Communist Party daily
Granma.
In one letter published Saturday, a group of well-known Cuban intellectuals
urged their colleagues to stop criticizing the island.
Entitled "Message from Havana to our friends in faraway places,"
the letter said the recent statements by leftist intellectuals "are being
used in the great campaign trying to isolate us and prepare the stage for
military aggression by the United States against Cuba."
Cuba made a similar assertion about several of its Latin American allies
earlier this month, calling them U.S. "lackeys" after the nations
backed an amendment calling for a U.N. rights monitor to visit the island.
Peru protested the comments by the Cuba's U.N. delegate, and Nicaragua
recalled its envoy from Cuba for consultations.
Still, Cuba has claimed some political victories recently.
The 53-member U.N. Human Rights Commission rejected a tougher amendment
criticizing Cuba's dissident crackdown.
Maryland also is sticking with plans to send the Pride of Baltimore II
clipper ship to the island to promote the state's seafood, poultry, pet food,
cake mix, juices and spices. The ship is scheduled to arrive at the island on
May 24.
But the Bush administration, unhappy about the Cuban action, is
contemplating ways to make Castro's government pay a price. It also has undercut
embargo foes on Capitol Hill.
Fuentes warned it will be hard for Castro to bounce back.
The Cuban president, he said, is preparing "the way for his own exit
from the world stage in a hail of flames." | 
