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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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