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Cuba Releases Well-Known Dissident Roque

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press Writer. Thu Jul 22.

HAVANA - The Cuban government on Thursday released political prisoner Martha Beatriz Roque from a hospital where she was serving a 20-year sentence. She is the seventh and best-known person let out of jail in three months.

Roque, speaking from her sister's home in Havana, said officials told her the release was due to health reasons. She suffers from diabetes.

Roque, an economist, was the lone woman among 75 Cuban dissidents arrested and sentenced to long prison terms in a crackdown last year after being accused of working with U.S. diplomats to undermine Cuba's communist government.

Half a dozen of the other dissidents have also been released for health reasons.

Roque, 59, said that too few of the 75 dissidents have been freed for her to say the Cuban government is softening its stance on political prisoners.

"Until all of us are back on the street, there's no gesture here," she said.

Roque's early release was unexpected. She said she was told to pack her bags just a few moments before she was escorted to her sister's home.

Her family had no idea she had been freed until they saw her pulling up to the house with her bags.

"We were very surprised," said her 75-year-old sister, Bertha Cabello Roque. "We were outside, and one of the kids said, 'There's Martha!' We are very happy."

Roque, who lost 22 pounds during her incarceration, complained of conditions in the jail cell where she stayed before being moved to a secure military hospital.

"There's no toilet - just a hole in the floor," she said. "There are lots of insects, and very big rats."

She said she had to use fingernail clippers to cut her grey hair.

Roque, a longtime opponent of Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government, said she plans to continue working with other dissidents in the hope of paving the way to a democratic system in Cuba.

She said she has no intention of leaving the island.

"From Cuba, it's not me who must go," she said. "It's those who do harm to the country who should leave. I think that this fight is for my people. I will keep fighting until my death."

Before her confinement, Roque directed the Institute of Independent Economists. She also served several years in prison in the late 1990s alongside leading dissident Vladimiro Roca.

"This was my second trial, perhaps I'll have another," she said.

One of Cuba's best-known dissidents is released

HAVANA, 22 (AFP) - Marta Beatriz Roque, one of Cuba's best-known dissidents, was released from jail 15 months after a court in Havana sentenced her to 20 years in prison during a major political crackdown.

The 58-year-old economist is the 14th dissident to be released by the communist government of President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) in recent months.

She was among 75 people arrested during a major crackdown on political opponents in Cuba in March last year.

Roque suffered from diabetes, hypertension and partial paralysis of the face since she was jailed in March last year.

Shortly after fellow dissidents announced her release in Havana, a Miami-based anti-Castro group quoted her as saying she would press for the release of all other political prisoners in Cuba.

"I will fight for them," she said told the Cuban Liberty Council over the telephone.

"I thank the exile community and the international community because I am convinced pressure on the Cuban regime has achieved this."

Roque also said she had not accepted any conditions for her release.

Following Havana's crackdown on dissidents last year, the European Union froze relations with Havana, while the US administration has recently tightened sanctions aimed at isolating the communist government.

Roque, a former leader of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society, banned by Havana, and who had also headed the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists, is among the best-known dissidents on the Caribbean island.

She already had spent three years in jail between 1997 and 2000.

"We join Marta Beatriz Roque's family and friends in welcoming her release from prison," State Department spokesman Steven Pike said in Washington.

"She never should have been imprisoned in the first place.

"Like many of the other prisoners of conscience held in Castro's gulag, she suffered from inadequate medical care in prison.

"Typically, the Castro government has once again released an activist only when her deteriorating health became an inconvenience," he said.

Cuban Dissident Calls for Referendum

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press Writer. Fri Jul 23.

HAVANA - A former political prisoner whose case was highlighted by President Bush urged Cuba's government Friday to hold a referendum on whether to change the communist island's political system.

In a 10-page report called "The Cuba We Want," Leonardo Bruzon Avila and fellow dissident Carlos Rios Otero called for the referendum and laid out a plan for Cuba's transition to a multiparty, democratic system and free-market economy.

The report was delivered Friday to the offices of Cuban Justice Minister Roberto Diaz Sotolongo. There was no public reaction by the President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government to the recommendations.

The proposal echoed dissident Oswaldo Paya's Varela Project, long ago rejected by Cuban authorities. Varela Project volunteers submitted 25,000 signatures to Cuba's parliament petitioning for a referendum on whether voters favor civil liberties such as freedom of speech and the right to business ownership.

Many of the 75 dissidents arrested and sentenced to long prison terms in a crackdown last year were Varela Project volunteers, accused of working with U.S. diplomats to undermine the island's government. They denied the charges.

Seven of the 75 have since been released for health reasons.

Bruzon is a former political prisoner who was arrested more than a year before the March 2003 crackdown. He was one of four dissidents who, after never being tried in court, were suddenly released without explanation in June.

Bruzon was relatively unknown in Cuba before his arrest but gained fame through international campaigns for his release.

He was on Amnesty International's list of Cuban prisoners of conscience, and mentioned by name, along with several other Cuban political prisoners, by Bush in an October speech announcing measures to crack down on American travel to the communist-run island.

At the time of his release, Bruzon said he wanted to leave Cuba soon to live in France, which granted him a visa after his family became alarmed about his health during a hunger strike in jail.

Mexico, Cuba Ambassadors Return to Posts

MEXICO CITY, 25 (AP) - The ambassadors for Cuba and Mexico returned to their posts Sunday, marking the end of a 3-month diplomatic spat between Fidel Castro's government and its once strongest ally in Latin America.

The rift climaxed May 2 when Mexico asked Cuban Ambassador Jorge Bolanos to leave, accusing Cuba's Communist Party of holding unauthorized political meetings in Mexico.

"I am supremely happy to return to Mexico, after a brief and involuntary absence," Bolanos said.

"Cuba and Mexico are two nations that geography made neighbors, and that our histories and heroes, both Cuban and Mexican, have united forever."

Mexican Ambassador Roberta Lajous Vargas returned to Havana on Sunday "with the aim of working toward a new vision of the future," Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said in a press statement.

The envoys returned to their posts on the 51 anniversary of a failed rebel attack that gave a name to Castro's cause - the July 26 Movement - and laid the groundwork for the Cuban leader's victory over the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Mexico was the only Latin American country to maintain ties with Havana after the 1959 Cuban revolution and had long been the island's strongest ally in the region.

Relations soured after President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) took office in 2000 and criticized Cuba's human rights record. In 2002, Mexico supported a resolution of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva condemning Cuba.

In May, Cuba said it had videos proving a Mexican business mogul arrested in Havana was part of a Fox government onspiracy to smear leftist Mexican politicians. The government denied that, and said Cuba's Communist Party was holding unauthorized political meetings in Mexico.

Cuban ambassador in Mexico, ending three-month spat

MEXICO CITY, 25 (AFP) - Cuba and Mexico exchanged ambassadors, defusing a three-month diplomatic row between the traditionally allied Latin American neighbors.

Ambassador Jorge Bolanos was to reopen the Cuban mission in Mexico City on Monday, after both countries recalled their representatives May 2.

"I always believed in the close historical and traditional ties between our two peoples," Bolanos said upon arrival on a commercial flight to Mexico City's airport.

Mexico's ambassador to Cuba, Roberta Lajous, also returned to her post in Havana.

A week ago, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez and his Cuban counterpart, Felipe Perez Roque held talks and agreed to renew normal relations.

Tensions between the countries rose in April, when Cuba, in a surprise move, announced the deportation of a Mexican businessman, Carlos Ahumada.

He had fled to Cuba after providing Mexican television stations with videotapes purportedly of himself handing large sums of cash to leftist Mexican politicians of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the party of Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, tipped a possible successor to Fox.

Mexican diplomats interpreted the move as Havana's attempt to influence Mexico's internal politics.

Mexico also took umbrage to a visit to here in April of three high-level Cuban officials, insisting the trio had engaged in "unacceptable" activities.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, during a May Day speech, berated Mexico for having voted in favor of a resolution condemning Cuba at the UN Human Rights Commission.

Castro said that Mexico's prestige and influence in Latin America had "turned to ashes" as a result.

When Mexico was governed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party and Castro ran Cuba's revolutionary communist state, the two Caribbean neighbors were mutual admirers as "revolutionary" states.

However, Cuba has become increasingly isolated in Latin America as leftist politics fell out of favor and as the United States has tightened sanctions against the island. The former Mexican ruling party lost to center-right National Action Party-backed President Vicente Fox, who began cooling relations with Cuba when he took office in 2000.

Castro embarrassed Fox in 2002 by releasing audiotapes of Fox telling Castro that he wasn't welcome at a UN-sponsored summit in Monterrey in 2002, for fear that Castro would clash with US President George W. Bush.

Unresolved differences between the countries include Cuba's 400-million-dollar debt to Mexico's state-owned bank Bancomext.

Semester at Sea, si! Cuba, no!

By Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Fri Jul 23.

U.S. travel restrictions force Pitt to end visits to Cuba A University of Pittsburgh-sponsored study abroad program that has brought American college students face-to-face with figures such as Desmond Tutu and Mikhail Gorbachev is dropping one famous presenter this fall -- Fidel Castro.

Bowing to the Bush administration's toughened restrictions on visits to Cuba, Semester at Sea is scrapping a regular stop in Havana that often included a face-to-face meeting between the Cuban leader and students from campuses across the United States.

Full story at Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Cuban Artists Perform for Fidel Castro

HAVANA, 23 (AP) - Singer Silvio Rodriguez, a star of a ballad style known as Cuban trova, performed his music alongside maestro Leo Brouwer and a symphony orchestra Thursday night at a free concert in the Cuban capital.

President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) sat in the front row and thousands of other Cubans filled the Revolution Plaza to hear Rodriguez sing, without his guitar, to orchestra music conducted by Brouwer.

The orchestra, made up of 200 young musicians from various Cuban provinces, began the event with selections from Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" before playing Rodriguez's music.

Rodriguez performed nine songs spanning four decades, including "Quedate," "El Problema," and "Canto Arena," a crowd pleaser. He opened with "Oh, Melancolia."

Cuban trova has its roots in the ballads that traveling singers - troubadours - composed during the island's wars of independence.

Modern Cuban trovas recall American protest songs of the 1960s and 1970s that focused attention on social problems through musical storytelling.

The event was dedicated to Antonio Gades, a noted Spanish flamenco dancer and choreographer who died Tuesday in Madrid after a long illness. Gades, who was 67, had close ties to Cuba and supported its communist revolution.

After the final song Thursday, Castro, accompanied by noted Cuban politicians and cultural figures, went up on stage and hugged both Rodriguez and Brouwer.

Contreras, Yanksare happy family

By Sam Borden, Daily News Sports Writer. Wed Jul 21.

ST. PETERSBURG - This was where Jose Contreras was supposed to fail. It was the seventh inning, the Cuban righty had a one-run lead and he had just walked the leadoff hitter on five pitches.

Suddenly, Felix Heredia was throwing in the bullpen and the Yankees fans at Tropicana Field were murmuring restlessly, wondering if yet another Contreras collapse was imminent.

But the righthander didn't flinch. Tino Martinez flailed helplessly at a strike-three forkball in the dirt, Jorge Cantu grounded out to short and Toby Hall flied out to left as Contreras skipped off the mound and the Yankees rolled out of town with a 4-2 win over the Devil Rays.

Getting out of that jam was a significant challenge for Contreras, but his next test is bigger: A nationally televised matchup with the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Sunday night.

"A month ago we would have made every effort to avoid that situation," pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre said after the game. "Now it's just another start for him."

"If he's not ready now, I don't think he'll ever be," Joe Torre added.

Indeed, Contreras has reinvented himself since his wife and two daughters defected from Cuba in late June. He allowed just two runs and four hits over seven innings yesterday, winning his third straight start and sending the Bombers home with a 3-3 record on their two-city road trip. Contreras has won four straight and eight of his last nine decisions. His lone poor outing since being reunited with his family came against the Mets at Shea Stadium on July 3, when he was staked to a huge lead and still allowed seven runs and eight hits in five innings.

Stottlemyre and Torre spoke to Contreras (8-3) after that start, impressing upon him that they have trust and confidence in him - and he, in turn, must feel the same way about himself.

Each day since then, Stottlemyre has reminded Contreras of those key words - trust and confidence - even learning the Spanish translation, confianza, which encompasses both sentiments.

"He's showing he knows how to take charge of a game now," Stottlemyre said.

The question, as it always is with Contreras, is whether he can continue this run of prosperity. Up until recently, Contreras was viewed as a $32 million bust, whose inconsistency made him one of the Yankee rotation's biggest liabilities.

Now, with Kevin Brown and Mike Mussina on the disabled list, he's becoming - ironically enough - the staff savior. Three of his last four wins have come following Yankee losses and he's lowered his ERA from 6.18 on June 20 to 4.84.

"The biggest difference is that I'm throwing strikes with all my pitches now," Contreras said through a translator. "I'm also keeping the ball down now, instead of leaving it up which you can't do against these hitters."

Gary Sheffield was Contreras' personal provider yesterday, driving in three of the Bombers' four runs. Sheffield, who is battling bursitis in his left shoulder and is considering getting a second cortisone injection, ripped his 18th homer of the year in the sixth inning off Victor Zambrano (9-6) to turn a one-run deficit into a 3-2 Yankees lead.

Tony Clark added an insurance run with an RBI single in the ninth, giving Mariano Rivera a boost as he recorded his 34th save of the season.

But the story was Contreras. Stottlemyre said the pitcher used to drag out his bullpen sessions, but now breezes through them as he does his starts, his confidence clearly evident.

The trust is there, too. Instead of removing Contreras after he walked the first hitter in the seventh, Torre left him to clean up his own mess.

And Contreras did.

"I tell him all the time," Stottlemyre said. "I tell him both ways, English and Spanish. It doesn't matter, we just need him to remember it. He's been a huge lift for us."

Full story at New York Daily News

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