CUBA NEWS
March 18, 2004

CUBA NEWS
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Cuban Dissidents' Wives Call for Release

By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer. Thu Mar 18, 2004.

HAVANA - The wives of imprisoned activists called for their husbands' release Thursday, one year after communist Cuba rounded them up in a group of 75 people during a crushing crackdown on dissent.

"We make another call for the release of the 75 innocent prisoners, just as we have made various calls in the past," said Gisela Delgado, wife of jailed opposition party leader Hector Palacios.

"I'm not optimistic that they will be released because the government has been increasingly intransigent," said Delgado, who wore a white T-shirt printed with a color photograph of her husband. "But we will keep on fighting."

Palacios, who recently underwent a gall bladder operation, is one of more than a dozen prisoners among the 75 who are currently hospitalized in custody for serious ailments.

Sitting under a red, white and blue Cuban flag tacked to the wall of her small living room, Delgado and several other prisoners' wives were spending the day in a protest fast.

It was among at least three such gatherings around Havana Thursday as inmates' families and supporters marked the anniversary of the roundup of independent reporters, opposition party members and democracy activists launched March 18, 2003.

Human rights groups around the world also weighed in this week, calling for the immediate release of the 74 men and one woman accused by Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government of working with U.S. officials to undermine the socialist system.

Cuba has defended the crackdown as necessary to protect the island from attempts by foreign powers to topple its communist leadership.

It also justified as necessary the unrelated firing-squad executions during that same period of three men who tried to hijack a passenger ferry to the United States. The unsuccessful hijack attempt came amid a wave of attempted hijackings of boats and planes that raised fears of a migration crisis.

Amnesty International was among the international rights groups that remembered the 75 crackdown prisoners this week, and called for their immediate release.

"After a detailed review of the legal cases against them, it is clear that they are prisoners of conscience - detained for the peaceful expression of their beliefs," said a statement from the London-based group.

The dissidents deny Cuba's charges they were mercenaries for the American government, and say their only crime was speaking their mind. The 75 were sentenced last April to prison terms of six to 28 years.

Palacios, president of Cuba's outlawed Democratic Solidarity Party, was sentenced to 25 years in what some dissidents here call the "Cuban Spring" - a reference to the short-lived "Prague Spring" reform effort crushed by former Czechoslovakia's communist government in 1968.

As many others picked up in Cuba's roundup, Palacios was an organizer for the Varela Project, a signature-gathering effort that seeks a voter's referendum on laws guaranteeing civil rights such as freedom of speech, assembly and private business ownership.

The initiative, later shelved by Cuba's National Assembly as unconstitutional, also sought electoral reforms and an amnesty for political prisoners.

The anniversary of the Cuban crackdown was remembered Thursday in Prague, Czech Republic, where about 200 protesters marched outside the Cuban Embassy chanting: "Cuba si! Castro no!"

In Washington this week, four Cuban-American members of the U.S. Congress introduced a resolution calling for the condemnation of the Castro government.

U.S. Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Bob Menendez also expressed support for jailed dissidents.

"The Cuban people should know that we stand shoulder to shoulder with them during these dark days and we will not falter till the oppressive Castro regime is gone for ever," Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.

Early Release Unlikely for Cuba Dissidents

By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer

HAVANA, 16 - Blanca Reyes waits by the phone every Thursday afternoon for a call from her jailed husband, Raul Rivero. A year ago Saturday, she watched from her tiny balcony as the poet and journalist was hustled away by President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s agents in front of cheering pro-government neighbors. Crying tears of rage, she shouted: "Alli va UN HOMBRE!" - "There goes A MAN!"

Rivero was among 75 dissidents arrested in a broad and crushing crackdown that provoked worldwide condemnation and showed a communist regime determined at any cost to prevent what 77-year-old Castro sees as Washington's growing effort to topple him, especially since the Iraq (news - web sites) invasion.

Rivero, 58 and serving 20 years in prison, gets to make one weekly call home. Every month or so Reyes hires someone to drive her to Ciego de Avila, a central city 265 miles east of Havana, to visit her husband in prison.

The phone rings in the modest fourth-story walk-up in a central Havana neighborhood of dilapidated apartment buildings, and for 25 precious minutes, husband and wife exchange news and affections.

Referring to notes scribbled on a pad, Reyes, 56, gives Rivero the latest on the daughter pregnant with his first grandchild, and tells him UNESCO is awarding him its World Press Freedom Prize.

Rivero reads his wife the love poems written for her and updates her on his weight loss - down 75 pounds to 192 pounds since he was arrested.

Three weeks after the arrests, Castro defended them by saying: "We are now immersed in a battle against provocations that are trying to move us toward conflict and military aggression by the United States.

"We have been defending ourselves for 44 years and have always been willing to fight until the end."

Reyes, a woman with a soft, round face framed by shortish blonde hair, says she cares about her family, not politics, and hopes Rivero will be freed if the couple agrees to leave Cuba. "The only thing important for me now is that Raul gets out," she says.

Rivero is among a few professionally trained Cuban journalists who call themselves independent reporters. He worked many years for state media, and was trusted enough to serve a stint in Moscow, Cuba's former backer, before breaking with Castro's regime in 1989. He has published many volumes of reportage and poetry.

He had been detained in the past, each time for several days, but this was the first time he was tried and sentenced.

Rivero's wife says neighbors testified to the closed tribunal that he had distributed "enemy propaganda" - articles from foreign newspapers - in the neighborhood and that foreigners frequently visited the apartment.

Rivero wrote articles for foreign publications that sometimes criticized his country, but denied being on a U.S. payroll.

The weeklong crackdown that began last March 18 swept up independent reporters, rights advocates and members of outlawed opposition parties. They were accused of working with American officials to bring down the government. They all denied it. So did Washington.

All were convicted in one-day trials in April and sentenced to prison terms of six to 28 years.

Cuba's highest court rejected their appeals. Human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez hopes at least the old and infirm will be amnestied, but expects it to take years. Meanwhile, he says, "If anything, they are tightening the screws on the inmates."

Amnesty International has adopted all 75 as prisoners of conscience. The nongovernment Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation headed by Sanchez says more than 300 political prisoners are now held on the island of 11 million people.

The crackdown came amid a rash of hijackings of planes and boats to the United States, which Cuba blamed on U.S. policies that it says encourage illegal emigration.

Separately from the March arrests, the regime executed by firing squad three men arrested in the unsuccessful armed hijacking of a passenger ferry, and jailed four others for life.

Amid worldwide condemnation of Castro, the United States tightened Cuba trade and travel restrictions.

Until the crackdown, Cuba's relatively small opposition had been gaining in strength and numbers, and increasing ties with U.S. diplomats in Havana.

U.S. officials were meeting more frequently with activists, and speaking out more pointedly - and publicly - against Castro on his home turf.

In May 2002, former President Carter had made a historic visit to Cuba during which he openly endorsed the reform movement and was allowed to deliver an uncensored talk about democracy on Cuban television.

The few vocal dissidents who escaped arrest a year ago still issue communiques and hold occasional news conferences, but they say the movement is crippled.

The government "has triumphed in its attempt to weaken (the opposition) but has lost in its legitimacy," said Manuel Cuesta Morua of Cuba's Moderate Opposition Reflection Group.

Sanchez, the human rights campaigner, says the Cuban nation both at home and in exile "is suffering from a type of political Alzheimer's."

Leadership throughout the Cuban community, both on the island and in Miami's exile stronghold, both official and opposition, is "marked by decrepitude, irrational decisions ... and it could continue for years," he said.

Sanchez has been the target of a government effort to discredit him, including release of a book and videotape revealing meetings he had with state security agents.

He says he never provided information to harm other activists and remains a primary source of information for international groups such as Human Rights Watch.

Sanchez noted that many of those arrested a year ago are 60 or older and at least a dozen are hospitalized for serious ailments.

Independent economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe,

63, is being treated for cirrhosis at a military hospital outside Havana.

"He's doing really poorly," Espinosa's wife, Miriam Leiva. "They just don't give me any medical information."

Cuba slams criticism, defies UN rights forum

GENEVA (AFP) - Cuba defied the United Nations' top human rights body by rejecting a UN expert's criticism of abuse in the country and barring her from the country.

"She has ended up acting as an instrument at the service of the US government," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told the annual meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

The expert, Catherine Chanet -- who is French -- released a report last month calling for the release of 75 opponents of Fidel Castro's regime who were arrested about one year ago.

Perez del Roque said Cuba "does not accept" a request that Chanet visit the country, even though the demand is regarded by human rights groups as a soft option.

It was made in a resolution presented to the Commission last year by three Latin American countries -- Uruguay, Peru and Nicaragua -- which was approved by the 53-member UN body.

EU countries and the US had wanted a tougher resolution.

In her report, Chanet said she had "particularly alarming" information about the "very trying conditions from the physical and psychological point of view" in which the detainees were being held.

Their arrest of the group, including poet and author Raul Rivero, in March and April 2003 and their sentencing to between six and 25 years in jail caused an international outcry.

The report by the personal representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also called for a review of laws restricting freedom of expression and association and the right to demonstrate.

But Perez del Roque slammed the report as "politicized and partial" during the meeting.

"Cuba does not accept being accused at this Commission in a high-handed politicized and discriminatory manner," the foreign minister said in a speech that was largely devoted to virulent criticism of the United States.

The report also highlighted "positive aspects" in Cuba's efforts for health and education, and moves to improve the status of women, allow freedom of religion and foster some dialogue with the UN on human rights.

Chanet criticized tensions between the United States and Cuba, warning that US laws and funding aimed against the regime provided Cuban authorities with an opportunity to "tighten repression" against political opposition.

US Treasury hits at Canadian agency promoting travel to Cuba

WASHINGTON, 17 (AFP) - US Treasury officials banned a Canadian travel agency from doing business in the United States because it encourages US citizens to illegally travel to Cuba.

Treasury officials blocked all property of Hola Sun Holidays Limited, "held by persons subject to US jurisdiction," which they said in a statement "is controlled by Fidel Castro and his regime."

Hola Sun is based in Richmond Hill, Ontario, north of Toronto.

The action also "prohibits persons subject to US jurisdiction from engaging in any transactions with this entity unless authorized" by US officials.

According to the statement, US law enforcement officials "have intercepted unauthorized travelers whose tour package were purchased through this travel agency, which uses the Internet to advertise and sell Cuban tourism to the US public."

Cuba slams criticism, defies UN rights forum

GENEVA. 17 (AFP) - Cuba defied the United Nations' top human rights body by rejecting a UN expert's criticism of abuse in the country and barring her from the country.

"She has ended up acting as an instrument at the service of the US government," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told the annual meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

The expert, Catherine Chanet -- who is French -- released a report last month calling for the release of 75 opponents of Fidel Castro's regime who were arrested about one year ago.

Perez del Roque said Cuba "does not accept" a request that Chanet visit the country, even though the demand is regarded by human rights groups as a soft option.

It was made in a resolution presented to the Commission last year by three Latin American countries -- Uruguay, Peru and Nicaragua -- which was approved by the 53-member UN body.

EU countries and the US had wanted a tougher resolution.

In her report, Chanet said she had "particularly alarming" information about the "very trying conditions from the physical and psychological point of view" in which the detainees were being held.

Their arrest of the group, including poet and author Raul Rivero, in March and April 2003 and their sentencing to between six and 25 years in jail caused an international outcry.

The report by the personal representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also called for a review of laws restricting freedom of expression and association and the right to demonstrate.

But Perez del Roque slammed the report as "politicized and partial" during the meeting.

"Cuba does not accept being accused at this Commission in a high-handed politicized and discriminatory manner," the foreign minister said in a speech that was largely devoted to virulent criticism of the United States.

The report also highlighted "positive aspects" in Cuba's efforts for health and education, and moves to improve the status of women, allow freedom of religion and foster some dialogue with the UN on human rights.

Chanet criticized tensions between the United States and Cuba, warning that US laws and funding aimed against the regime provided Cuban authorities with an opportunity to "tighten repression" against political opposition.

U.S. Links Travel Company to Cuba

WASHINGTON, 17 A(P) - The Bush administration on Wednesday identified a foreign travel company that it says is linked to Cuba and thus is forbidden from doing business in the United States.

The Treasury Department's action against Hola Sun Holidays Limited of Ontario, Canada, marks the latest development from President Bush's call for more aggressive enforcement of provisions that prohibit most travel to Cuba.

The travel agency "provides easy access to U.S. individuals traveling to Cuba," the department said. "U.S. law enforcement officials have intercepted unauthorized travelers whose tour packages were purchased through this travel agency, which uses the Internet to advertise and sell Cuban tourism to the U.S. public."

The department alleged that the travel agency is "controlled by Fidel Castro and his regime."

US Treasury hits at Canadian agency promoting travel to Cuba

WASHINGTON, 17 (AFP) - US Treasury officials banned a Canadian travel agency from doing business in the United States because it encourages US citizens to illegally travel to Cuba.

Treasury officials blocked all property of Hola Sun Holidays Limited, "held by persons subject to US jurisdiction," which they said in a statement "is controlled by Fidel Castro and his regime."

Hola Sun is based in Richmond Hill, Ontario, north of Toronto.

The action also "prohibits persons subject to US jurisdiction from engaging in any transactions with this entity unless authorized" by US officials.

According to the statement, US law enforcement officials "have intercepted unauthorized travelers whose tour package were purchased through this travel agency, which uses the Internet to advertise and sell Cuban tourism to the US public."


 

 


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