Posted on 04/09/2003 2:20:41 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's communist government confirmed on Wednesday that dozens of dissidents have been jailed for up to 28 years for being "mercenaries" of the United States.
In the first official statement on the trials of 78 opponents of President Fidel Castro rounded up since March 18, the Justice Ministry said the sentences ranged from six to 28 years.
The dissidents were jailed for "mercenary activities and other acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the Cuban state," said a ministry statement published on the front page of Granma, the ruling Communist Party daily.
After the largest wave of arrests in decades in Cuba three weeks ago, authorities charged the dissidents with plotting with U.S. diplomats to subvert Cuba's one-party state.
Leading dissidents, democracy and rights activists and opposition journalists were arrested in their homes across the country. The houses were searched by police who seized computers, typewriters, fax machines and books.
Many of the dissidents had attended meetings at the residence of the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, James Cason, who had increased support for the island's small but growing opposition movement, in line with the Bush administration's harder push for political change in Cuba.
A White House spokesman denounced the crackdown on Wednesday.
"The president remains deeply troubled by the wave of repression and the long prison sentences handed down to Cuba's pro-democracy and human rights activists," said U.S. National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton.
"The Castro regime's arrest, prosecution and sentencing of these brave and peaceful activists are repugnant reminders that the Castro regime remains a totalitarian blight in an otherwise peaceful and democratic hemisphere."
TOUGHEST SENTENCES
The toughest sentences were for independent journalists -- 28 were arrested -- and organizers of the Varela Project, a petition for democratic reforms that gathered more than 11,000 signatures last year.
The initiative's leader, Oswaldo Paya, who won the European Union's top human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, in December, was not arrested, but his organization, the first nationwide opposition network, was dismembered in the roundup.
Luis Enrique Ferrer, a local coordinator in the city of LasTunas for the Varela Project, was sentenced to 28 years in prison, the stiffest sentence, the Cuban Human Rights Commission said.
Cuba's best-known dissident poet, writer and journalist, Raul Rivero, 57, and economist Martha Beatriz Roque -- the only woman put on trial -- got 20 year sentences.
International rights groups said the draconian sentences given after one-day trials by improvised courts, where undercover agents that infiltrated the dissident groups were produced as witnesses, was a throwback to Stalinism.
Amnesty International called the jailings appalling and "a giant step backwards for human rights" in Cuba.
The Castro government was undeterred by an outpouring of criticism from foreign governments and rights groups and insisted that the dissidents were a tool of its longtime ideological foe, the United States.
The wives of jailed dissidents said they had three days to appeal, but were not hopeful the sentences could be changed.
"These terms were dictated by President Castro. In Cuba there is only one voice." said Rivero's wife, Blanca Reyes said after hearing his sentence on Monday. "This is like a Roman circus."
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque speaks during a press conference in Havana, Cuba Wednesday, April 9, 2003. Roque scheduled the conference to talk about ``the mercenaries in the service of the Empire.'' Granma reported the conference would be shown across the island on state television on Wednesday evening. (AP Photo/Jose Goitia)
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Hola, Fidel, look down at that red spot on your chest. . .
You'd better keep quiet for a while, unless you want a visit from a Cruise missile next time you have one of those 6-hr speech in the Revolution Square of downtown Havana.
Sorry for the crassness, but it just had to be said.
IF that.....the Cubans are pretty savy folks.
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