Posted on 05/09/2002 2:08:58 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA - Oswaldo Paya's first attempt to cajole a loosening of Cuba's socialist system by collecting signatures a decade ago ended with failure and an insult painted on his house: "PAYA: CIA AGENT."
But a more recent petition effort has become perhaps the biggest homegrown, nonviolent campaign to change the government established by Fidel Castro 43 years ago, and its leaders may be among activists meeting with former President Jimmy Carter during his visit next week.
Project Varela has gathered more than 10,000 signatures from people across the island proposing a referendum that would ask voters if they favor civil liberties like free speech, an amnesty for political prisoners, the right to start their own businesses.
Cuba's constitution says the National Assembly should schedule a national referendum if it receives the verified signatures of 10,000 legal voters.
"Many have lost their fear," Paya said of those who have signed. "In a totalitarian country, change begins when people begin to liberate themselves."
Asked by reporters in April about the campaign, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said he doubted it will succeed and he accused its organizers of being on the U.S. government payroll.
Paya, who says the project has received no money from any government or group outside Cuba, said state security agents have harassed the petition drive from its beginning last year, but particularly now that the campaign is near its goal. He said agents had confiscated several thousand signatures, but volunteers had gone out and collected more.
Carter, who arrives Sunday at Castro's invitation, plans to meet with Cuban activists to discuss human rights and religious matters next Thursday, his staff has said.
It's being speculated that Paya will be among those meeting with Carter, but the 50-year-old electrical engineer declined in an interview to confirm that.
Sitting in the living room of the simple one-story house he shares with his wife and three school-age children, he said the former American leader will be welcomed by Cubans who remember his attempts to normalize U.S.-Cuba relations during his 1977-81 term.
"Carter is a man of much prestige, a politician yet a humanist, a personality with moral force," said Paya, a devout Roman Catholic who co-founded the Christian Liberation Movement, which is helping coordinate the petition drive.
Carter also is expected to meet with former political prisoner Vladimiro Roca, who was freed Sunday with two months to go in his five-year sentence. Some saw the release as a goodwill gesture by the government, but both Roca and Paya noted most of the sentence had been served.
Others likely to meet with Carter are two other Project Varela coordinators: Elizardo Sanchez, head of the non-governmental Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, and Hector Palacios Ruiz of the Democratic Solidarity Party. Like Paya's group, their organizations are tolerated but not legally recognized in Cuba's one-party system.
Vicky Huddleston, chief of the U.S. Interests Section here, said the sheer number of signatures gathered demonstrate a change is under way.
"There is hope that President Carter's visit will have an impact on Project Varela," Huddleston said. "I think Oswaldo Paya is right, that people have begun to lose their fear."
Named for the Rev. Felix Varela, a Cuban independence hero, the petition drive differs greatly from Paya's first one, which simply called for a national dialogue between the government and its opponents. During that effort in 1991 Paya gathered signatures only in Havana, from his home.
Although Paya's group first talked about Project Varela in 1996, it wasn't until the last year that volunteers begin collecting signatures in earnest.
Volunteers are now verifying signatures, visiting each person who signed and ensuring name, address and national identity documents match. Once verification is complete, the petitions will be presented to the National Assembly.
While the first signers were members of opposition groups, most who have signed in recent months are simply citizens hungry for change, Paya said.
"This is something important, unheard of, because the protagonist is the Cuban people and because it is being done inside Cuba," he said.
In short, the project -- named for a celebrated 19th Century Cuban priest who advocated basic freedoms -- aims to jump-start a transition to a democratic society.
Much credit is due, not only to those who signed, but also to the courageous Cuban dissidents who conceived and led the massive effort, notably Oswaldo Payá, head of the Christian Liberation Movement. Commendably, Elizardo Sánchez, of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights, Gustavo Arcos, of the Cuban Human Rights Committee, and Héctor Palacios, of the Democratic Solidarity Party also supported the Varela Project early on.
Mr. Páya recently described how volunteers seeking signatures persisted despite thrashings, detentions and threats. They've had to hide the sheets to prevent Cuban security agents from destroying them.
The lengths to which these activists have gone and the astounding numbers of Cubans who joined them, show how ripe Cuba is for change. Moreover, the 15,000 signatures of support for Varela Project that were collected in Miami shows the goodwill of many Cuban exiles.
Rather than accept a dictator's eventual death as the only path toward freedom, Cubans are practicing the art of the possible on the island. Whether or not the regime acts on the Varela petition, the effort is a boost to Cuba's nascent civil society and has begun to dispel hopelessness and fear.
Cubans on the island, with support from the diaspora, can and will lead way to freedom. Be not afraid [End Excerpt]
Anti-Castro Forces Mount Petition Drive [Excerpts] "The Varela Project is the blooming of the Cuban human rights movement," Huddleston said. "Project Varela is the voice of over 10,000 Cubans using nonviolent and legal means to make their lives better through gaining a voice in how they are governed."
For Idelfonso Brooks, 59, a retired Cuban naval officer, working against the government he once supported has resulted in harassment from the state security police.
Brooks, a member of Paya's Christian Liberation Movement who collected signatures for the project, said his problems started in February 2001, when police left a citation on his front door, summoning him for questioning.
He said when he arrived, police chastised him for being involved with Paya and the Varela Project. He said they asked how a man who had spent almost 30 years in the navy, then more than a decade working in another government department, could "turn [his] back on the revolution."
On New Year's Day, he received another summons. This time, he said, police stood him against a wall in the station, and screamed and cursed at him. He said they called him and Paya homosexuals. They called him a liar and a traitor. They scribbled "criminal" on a piece of paper and made him wear it on his chest. They threw him into a cell and kept him in custody for nearly seven hours.
"They said they were going to hurt my son and my granddaughter, who live in Miami," said Brooks, a small man whose severe vision problems forced him to retire early.
"If I had any doubt about what I was doing in this movement, I didn't anymore," Brooks said, bursting into deep, uncontrollable sobs.
"I never in my whole life thought that the revolution I dedicated my life to could do something like this," he said. "I feel so guilty. We Cubans have hurt so many other Cubans. After 43 years [of Castro], I have only suffering and I see no future. But maybe if this project works we will have reconciliation. All this hate must end." ……..
Paya said one more strategic obstacle looms: The National Assembly is now saying that all 10,000 signers must appear before a notary public to notarize their signatures. Paya said he had a strategy for dealing with that, but would not reveal it until the signatures arrive at the assembly.
Asked if he were dreaming to think that he could outmaneuver Castro, Paya smiled.
"If you don't have dreams, you can't get results," he said. [End Excerpts]
May 9, 2002 - MRC Special Report. "Megaphone for a Dictator: CNN's Coverage of Castro's Cuba, 1997-2002."*** CNN's Havana bureau now has a five-year track record that can be evaluated, and the results are not good. Media Research Center analysts reviewed all 212 stories about the Cuban government or Cuban life that were presented on CNN' s prime time news programs from March 17, 1997, the date the Havana bureau was established, through March 17, 2002. MRC's analysis found that instead of exposing the totalitarian regime that runs Cuba, CNN has allowed itself to become just another component of Fidel Castro's propaganda machine. ***
May 9, 2002 - Jeff Jacoby: Cuba's jailed heroes*** Chaviano refused to be intimidated. Government goons broke into his home and beat him up. Still he persisted in speaking out. Early in the morning of May 7, 1994, a man he didn't know came to his door, delivered a sheaf of papers, and left. Moments later, the security police raided the house. They made a great show of finding the planted document, which they seized as ''evidence.'' Chaviano was arrested and held for nearly a year before learning that he would be charged with ''revealing state secrets'' and ''illicit enrichment.''
His trial was a farce. It was closed to the public, but the courtroom was packed with state security agents. Chaviano was not allowed to see the evidence against him or to call witnesses in his own defense. His conviction was a foregone conclusion; his sentence was 15 years. That was eight years ago. Today he is locked in the maximum-security Combinado del Este prison; his wife is permitted to visit him once every two months. His health has deteriorated - he suffers from an ulcer and respiratory problems - but his ideals remain intact. ''His spirit is strong,'' his wife told me recently. ''He gives me strength.''***
Carter, an American democrat, knows that many, many of the signatures on the petition are forged, mechanically duplicated or were obtained under false pretenses. That is why Carter brings secret instructions and the location of a great deal of cash that European tourists (and some diplomats) have brought to Havana. Once Paya ("Waldo") has the cash, he can bribe government representatives to accept the signatures and maybe the petition will do the job.
Carter and Paya know that Carter's pep talk to the senior members of the Cuban anti-Castro underground will be a tremendous morale booster and the cash that Carter will pass out will help, too. This could really work out well, so long as Fidelito doesn't find out about Carter's real mission, the equipment, and, especially, the cash.
18 USC 953:
"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
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