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By ANITA SNOW
.c The Associated Press
HAVANA (AP) -
Days after Pope John Paul II urged greater freedoms for Cubans, the country's
No. 2 Communist said Cuba remained steadfastly dedicated to socialism and its
revolution.
Standing before the Moncada Barracks, site of the 1953 attack led by his
brother Fidel Castro that marked the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, Raul
Castro announced plans Wednesday to build a monument to heroes of the uprising
and the wars of independence.
"This is a fighting people,'' the defense minister said in a live
televised speech on the 145th anniversary of the birth of independence hero Jose
Marti. "Santiago continues to be Santiago: cradle of the revolution.''
"Socialism or death! Patriotism or death!'' the crowd chanted. "We
will overcome!''
The Marti commemoration was repeated with rallies in cities across the
nation that brought out thousands of party faithful marching through the streets
at night with burning torches.
The short speech by the No. 2 man in the Communist Party appeared to be a
government move to reaffirm its dominance in the city where a speech last
Saturday by Roman Catholic Archbishop Pedro Meurice Estiu during a Mass by the
pope infuriated government officials
"Our people are respectful of authority, and want order, but they need
to learn to demystify false messiahs,'' the Santiago archbishop told tens of
thousands of Catholic faithful.
"A growing number of Cubans have confused patriotism with a party, the
nation with a historic process we have lived through in the past decades, and
culture with an ideology,'' he said.
Later during the Mass, John Paul called for respect for three freedoms - of
expression, initiative and association.
But it was Meurice's speech that drew the wrath of communist officials.
National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon on Tuesday said Meurice's speech
"recalled a lamentable era at the beginning of the revolution when some
clerics had an unpatriotic attitude.''
Meanwhile, church officials were still waiting today for a government
response to John Paul's request that Cuba to release its "prisoners of
conscience'' in one of the bluntest political messages of the pontiff's five-day
visit to Cuba.
Vatican officials also appealed last week for clemency on behalf of several
hundred Cuban prisoners, both political detainees and common criminals.
Alarcon suggested there could be sentence reductions or early releases on
humanitarian grounds for aged or ill prisoners convicted of common crimes or
other offenses.
He characterized the pope's request as an "appeal for clemency by the
pope similar to those he has made in many places'' on his foreign travels.
Michael E. Ranneberger, head of the Cuban Affairs Office for the State
Department, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday in Havana that
he hoped - as the pontiff requested - that any inmates released would be allowed
to stay in the country.
Fidel Castro's government has honored requests to release prisoners, but has
always insisted that they immediately leave the country.
"The question is whether they will be allowed to return to Cuban
society,'' Ranneberger said. "If that happens, that will be a considerable
change, not just window dressing.''
Many Cuban prisoners this week were being allowed rare family visits, as an
apparent concession to the pontiff, both Cuban and American officials here said.
AP-NY-01-29-98 0247EST |