On or Off Cuba Ping.
Posted on 02/17/2005 8:50:12 PM PST by freedom44
HAVANA (Reuters) - Leading Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya called on Thursday for a national dialogue on a post-Castro transition in Cuba, inviting both exiled Cubans and government supporters to take part.
Paya announced the creation of a committee of 110 members, half of them living in exile, who will promote discussion on reforms to Cuba's one-party communist state.
Proposed reforms include an amnesty for political prisoners, opening of Cuba's command economy to private initiative, ending of the state monopoly of the media and a constituent assembly to decide the island's political future.
"This is not an opposition alliance, because a national dialogue cannot just include opponents," Paya said.
"The government is part of Cuban society and we are open to dialogue with its members," he said at a news conference.
Few analysts believe there is any scope for political change in Cuba while President Fidel Castro remains at the helm. The 78-year-old leader has been in power since a 1959 revolution.
"The government has shown no willingness to change," said Paya, a Christian Democrat.
But government supporters have expressed interest in a dialogue, though only in private, he said.
"We the persecuted have more freedom to talk than people linked to the government. They request reserve," he said.
For Paya, winner of the European Parliament's Andrei Sakharov human rights prize named after the Russian dissident, this is a second attempt to seek moderate reforms in Cuba.
In 2002 he gathered 11,000 signatures to petition for a referendum on civil liberties called the Varela Project. The government rejected the petition and in March 2003 cracked down on its opponents by jailing 75 dissidents. Fourteen have since been freed.
Paya's supporters can only meet in homes and churches, have no access to the Cuban media and are frequently harassed, he said.
DIVIDED OPPOSITION
The new call to dialogue on a peaceful transition included 57 Cuban exiles, among them journalist and writer Carlos Alberto Montaner, human rights activist Ricardo Bofill, and Francisco de Armas, the Varela Project representative abroad.
"This is the first time Cubans on the island and in the rest of the world are working together as one, because Cuba has only one future," Paya said.
But the moderate leader's call to dialogue with the Cuban government has enemies within the recalcitrant anti-Castro exile groups, mostly based in Miami.
"They attack us systematically. They are bombarding this dialogue," Paya said.
Miami hard-liners want a leading role in a post-Castro Cuba, but the transition will be decided firstly by Cubans living in Cuba, Paya said. "This is not a pie to be shared out," he said.
Within Cuba, the fledgling dissident movement remains divided and infiltrated by government informants.
A rival group founded by economist Martha Beatriz Roque, the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, is planning an unprecedented public meeting scheduled for May 20.
Roque, one of the 75 jailed dissidents, has set about organizing hundreds of small groups, such as rights groups and independent libraries, since she was released from prison in July for health reasons.
Paya said his followers would not go to Roque's meeting because it represented only part of the dissident movement, while his effort was aimed at a national dialogue.
On or Off Cuba Ping.
As for myself, I would like to be able visit Cuba legally rather than taking a side trip and worrying about possible adverse consequences. What would I plan to see? Lots and lots of great Cuban jazz, their world famous beaches and many, many local sights. Take a peek at Hemingway's villa where he lived and wrote and loved. Whatever my heart desires . . . I hear Cubans are a warm and wonderfully friendly people.
Rumors are circulating that when Castro dies the island may once again become a friendly attraction for American tourists.
Bump
***......We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.
We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people. America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies, yet rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.
Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty - though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt. Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery. Liberty will come to those who love it.
Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world:
All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you. ....***
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