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By Frances Kerry
HAVANA, Jan 21
(Reuters) - While noboby knows how forcefully Pope John Paul will talk about
human rights in Cuba, one of the island's leading dissidents hopes his visit may
help change President Fidel Castro's communist system.
The Pontiff told reporters on the plane flying him from Rome to Havana
Wednesday that he would comment on human rights during his five-day stay.
``You know very well I am thinking about human rights and what I can say to
guarantee human rights,'' he said, without elaborating.
For Elizardo Sanchez, a veteran campaigner for human rights who advocates a
peaceful political transition on the island, the papal trip ``will have a big,
important and positive impact on society.''
But Sanchez, who heads a group called the Cuban Commission for Human Rights
and National Reconciliation, told Reuters he was not expecting a ``miracle, and
I do not think that the Pope himself thinks he can achieve a miracle.''
Sanchez added that it would be very bad for the country in the long term if
the government chose to use the papal visit only as a form of ``recognition,''
and proceeded to ``reinforce the totalitarian model.''
He described the current human rights situation in Cuba as ``unfortunately
very unfavourable, one of the worst situations in the Americas,'' adding it was
the only country in the region where peaceful opposition groups were outlawed.
Sanchez acknowledged that the one-party government, in power since Castro's
1959 revolution, does have a good record on caring for the social welfare of
Cuba's 11 million people.
But he added that even the free health and education systems have suffered
deterioration amid Cuba's economic crisis since the early 1990s.
Havana consistently rebuffs accusations of human rights abuses by arguing
rights are more than a question of individual liberties and should take into
account social rights.
The Pope, while attaching considerable importance to issues such as health
and care for the poorest sectors of society, has said rights should be
``indivisible'' -- not to be picked and chosen at will, Sanchez noted.
Like all dissident groups in Cuba, the organization Sanchez heads is illegal
and viewed by the government as a ``puppet'' of Washington.
Dissidents in Cuba are subject to official harassment, detention or jail
sentences and, lacking any access to the media, they are often better known
abroad than on the island.
But Sanchez, whose organization keeps close track of political prisoners ,
said that their number had about halved in the last year to about 500 now.
``This seems to me to be positive,'' he said.
But he added that this did not mean the authorities had stopped seeking to
contain dissidents.
``Repression here is of a low intensity, there is a lot of intimidation, and
a lot of detentions for short periods,'' said Sanchez.
But four people are still languishing in jail more than six months after
their arrest.
They are Vladimiro Roca, Martha Beatriz Roque, Rene Gomez Manzano and Felix
Bonne, leaders of a ``Working Group'' that aimed to forge some unity among the
country's dissident groups.
The four, who have not yet been tried, were increasingly gaining the
attention of foreign diplomats and journalists in Havana.
They were detained after issuing a carefully presented paper that criticized
a document issued by the Communist Party ahead of its Fifth Party Congress last
October.
The government has so far ignored expressions of concern over their
detention from the European Community and Canada.
Cuba's Roman Catholic primate Cardinal Jaime Ortega declined to comment when
asked at a news conference this week whether the Church had asked for an amnesty
for the four, or other political prisoners, to mark the papal visit. ^REUTERS@
22:26 01-21-98 |