CUBA NEWS
March 21, 2005

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Prisoners' Wives Want Cuba Media Space

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press Writer. March 18, 2005.

HAVANA - Nearly 30 wives of political prisoners marched to the headquarters of the government's journalists' union Friday to demand their plight be publicized in Cuba's state-run media, marking the second anniversary of the crackdown that put their spouses behind bars.

Wearing all-white clothing and sashes that said "amnesty," the women dropped off a letter to the union president that harshly criticized those working for Cuban newspapers, magazines and television stations.

"Journalists for the state media keep silent. They don't see," the Cuban wives said. "They don't know what's happening in their times. They wear ear muffs, and march on the only road that the state lets them."

Activists in Miami and Prague, the Czech capital, also held demonstrations Friday to remember Cuba's political prisoners.

Cuba's communist government on March 18, 2003 launched a roundup of 75 dissidents, later sentencing them to long prison terms. They were accused of working with the United States to undermine Fidel Castro's government - charges the activists and Washington deny.

"We are here to demand our page, our space," continued the letter from the prisoners' wives, "because although they don't like it, they can't deny our existence."

The women also passed out copies of the letter to passers-by.

Cuba's national media is operated by the communist government and rarely reports on government opponents, who are typically characterized by officials as counterrevolutionaries and mercenaries.

Workers at the journalists' union looked on with surprise as Laura Pollan, leader of the "Ladies in White," spoke to international journalists outside.

"Perhaps they will stigmatize us as mercenaries too, but they don't realize that up until now we have been workers, housewives, and wives," Pollan said.

Over the last year, the "Ladies in White" have become increasingly bold, launching several candlelight vigils and even public protests - practically unheard of in communist Cuba.

Some credit their pressure with leading to last year's release of 14 of the 75 prisoners.

"We are simply fighting for the liberty of our husbands, for the union of our families," said Pollan, whose husband, Hector Maseda, received a 20-year sentence in the crackdown. "We love our men, and we have the right for the press to present (our situation), so the Cuban people know we have the same rights as all other wives."

Earlier in the day, the women gathered at Pollan's home to pray, read poetry and encourage each other to remain hopeful for the release of their husbands.

"It's like group therapy," said Beatriz del Carmen Pedroso, whose husband, Julio Cesar Galvez Rodriguez, an independent journalist, is serving 15 years. "It's a meeting for everyone, where we can get out everything we're feeling, everything we're suffering."

Pedroso shuddered when recalling her husband's arrest two years ago.

"That day was hideous," she said. "They came at 4:30 p.m., more than 12 armed men, saying they had to register everything in the house. They searched every nook and cranny, confiscating books, articles, a camera."

The men stayed until 6:30 a.m. the following day. "We didn't eat, we didn't sleep," she said. "Then, they took my husband."

Several of the 14 prisoners released last year also showed up Friday.

"I had to come, for my own conscience, to show solidarity to my brothers who are still unjustly imprisoned," said Jorge Olivera, an independent journalist who was released in December for colon problems.

Olivera said he wants to leave Cuba with his family, but has not received permission from Cuban authorities even though he has a U.S. visa.

"It's impossible to think my family has a future here," he said.

Reporters Without Borders expressed concern Friday about the health of another independent journalist still behind bars, Jose Luis Garcia Paneque. It said he had lost 80 pounds since his arrest two years ago because of intestinal problems.

"Keeping him in detention any longer could be fatal, so we urgently call on the Cuban authorities to release him to allow him to receive the medical care he needs," the Paris-based advocacy group said.

Castro Slightly Strengthens Cuban Peso

By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer. Friday March 18.

Castro Slightly Strengthens Cuban Peso, Promises to Make Salaries More 'Honorable'

HAVANA (AP) -- Increasingly optimistic about his communist nation's economy, President Fidel Castro has put in motion a gradual revaluation of the national currency and promised to later consider raising the country's low government salaries.

The 7 percent revaluation of the Cuban peso went into effect Friday, the first change in the exchange rate since it was frozen in December 2001.

Castro told the nation's top leadership late Thursday it was the first step in the revaluation of the currency used for state salaries and government subsidized goods and services.

Improved trade relationships with Venezuela and China "have created conditions for a progressive, gradual and prudent revaluation of the national currency," Castro said in a speech broadcast live on state radio and television.

Because the revaluation was slight, and without specifics on raises for state salaries, Cubans seemed ambivalent Friday about the announcement.

"It's fine, but it doesn't affect me," said Mayra Estanque, a worker in Old Havana.

The communist-run island now uses two currencies: the regular Cuban peso, which was the one strengthened, and the convertible Cuban peso, which trades at 1-1 to the U.S. dollar.

Castro has hinted repeatedly in recent months that he wants Cuba to have just one currency and eliminate the confusion and inequalities created among citizens after the American dollar was legalized in 1993. The U.S. dollar was removed from circulation on the island four months ago and replaced by the convertible Cuban peso as the primary legal tender for many consumer goods.

While the regular Cuban peso is used for state salaries and most government goods and services, the convertible Cuban peso has been used for products such as electronics, clothing, cleaning supplies and food not provided on the government ration.

Reading from a resolution by Cuba's Central Bank, Castro said that starting Friday, the convertible Cuban peso, which previously could be purchased with 27 ordinary Cuban pesos, will now be worth 25 Cuban pesos.

Earlier in the three-hour speech, Castro said he would later discuss making government salaries more "honorable." He offered no details.

He also said the government wanted to make more products available to citizens at affordable prices in Cuban pesos. Few average citizens can afford to buy many of the products offered only in the convertible currency.

"What we have to do is to give more to the people and distribute it better in the spirit of justice through socialist means," Castro said.

The average Cuban government worker earns 300 pesos a month, or the equivalent of about US$11 (euro8.2). With the revaluation, the average salary will be worth slightly more, just US $12 (euro9).

Salary figures can be misleading in Cuba, where most citizens pay no rent, education and health care are free, and the government offers heavily subsidized basic services such as utilities and transportation at extremely low cost.

Cubans also receive low-cost rations that include about a third of the food they eat each month.

Cuba Dissidents Face Internal Divisions

By Vanessa Arrington, The Associated Press.

Mar. 17, 2005 - Two years after a government crackdown crippled Cuba's political opposition, competing projects for democratic reform on the communist-run island are generating deep mistrust and bickering in opposition ranks.

Rivalry between projects by well-known activist Oswaldo Paya and former political prisoner Martha Beatriz Roque is also sharpening disagreements over what role the United States should play in promoting change on the island.

Roque, who is planning an opposition congress for the spring, says the National Dialogue, Paya's new endeavor to organize citizens into small groups to discuss a future Cuba, doesn't go nearly far enough. And unlike Paya, she thinks it is perfectly all right to seek assistance from the U.S. government.

Paya refuses to participate in Roque's congress, which aims to bring opponents from both on and off the island to a huge gathering May 20. He says he doesn't trust the organizers because they have tried to sabotage his own efforts.

Veteran activist Vladimiro Roca said the differences come from a culture that has grown divisive under a controlling government. Paya and Roque have clashed on a personal level for a long time, said Roca, who nonetheless expressed optimism that the dissident movement would work through these latest challenges.

"I think the opposition has gained quite a bit of experience and knowledge," said Roca, who went to prison in 1997 to serve a five-year sentence for his political activities. "We are not as far along as we were in March 2003, but we are back in motion."

Before the crackdown, opposition groups were attracting new followers and launching initiatives such as the Varela Project, a democracy drive led by Paya seeking civil liberties such as freedom of speech and the right to business ownership.

But when the government rounded up 75 activists beginning on March 18, 2003, and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from six to 28 years, the movement was "paralyzed," Roca said.

Some leaders such as Roca, Paya and Elizardo Sanchez, a human rights advocate, were spared. But many who worked with them, along with well-known activists such as poet Raul Rivero and Roque, an economist, were arrested.

Roca said the opposition didn't begin to recover for at least a year. A major, unexpected force was the "Ladies in White" a group of political prisoners' wives fighting for their husbands' release who have held public protests practically unheard of in Cuba.

The release for medical reasons of 14 of the original 75 prisoners, including Rivero and Roque, opened a new page in the movement, though most of the 14 Roque being a notable exception have been quiet since their release.

While some play down the bickering, saying such divisions are natural in any movement, others say it's creating deep fissures.

"There are more personal differences than political ones, and that tends to poison things," said Manuel Cuesta Morua, spokesman for the dissident group Arco Progresista, which has said it will not participate in the congress. "It has really damaged the opposition."

The setting is clouded by suspicions over whether some in the opposition ranks are government infiltrators. At the 2003 crackdown trials, state security agents who posed as dissidents revealed their true identities and testified against activists.

"After 15 years in the opposition, you begin to sniff them out," said Roque, whose conviction was clinched by testimony from a trusted assistant who turned out to be an undercover agent.

Another division revolves around U.S. involvement in the Cuban opposition. U.S. policies aimed at choking Fidel Castro's government have separated dissidents into two camps: those who embrace American assistance, and those who don't.

In Washington, Adam Ereli, the deputy State Department spokesman said the United States seeks a rapid and peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba, and supports all Cubans who seek this outcome.

"The Cuban people deserve a government committed to democracy and the full observance of human rights," said Ereli.

Roque and two other dissidents recently addressed a U.S. congressional committee by telephone, praising the policies of President Bush while sharply criticizing Castro.

The call, made from inside the offices of the American mission in Havana, was an audacious move that could land the three Roque, Felix Bonne and Rene Gomez back behind bars.

Roque doesn't rule out the possibility, saying that organizing the dissident congress could also lead to prison. "I leave the house with my toothbrush inside my purse, just in case," she said.

Philip Brenner, a professor of international relations at American University in Washington, said dissidents working with the U.S. government take unnecessary risks that undermine their credibility.

"They are seen (among the Cuban people) as being unpatriotic. They go too far," he said.

"The people who are not aligned to the United States understand the limits of dissent in Cuba," he said, and are working gradually to create space for civil society.

 

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