Accusations that the detainees engaged in treason and are mercenaries "only show the repressive nature of the Castro regime and its fear of any sign of opposition to its ironclad rule," Roberto Zimmerman, spokesman for the U.S. State Department's Latin America bureau, said in Washington on Wednesday. The Cubans "are being tried for exercising their rights of freedom of expression and association," said Zimmerman.
The roundup followed several years of relative government tolerance for dissidents. During that time, the opposition grew stronger, more organized and more daring. Those arrested included independent journalists, directors of non-governmental libraries, members of opposition political parties and volunteers for the Varela Project, a pro-democracy petition drive.***
With such stunning courtroom revelations, Fidel Castro's government pressed ahead Friday the prosecution of 80 dissidents accused of working with U.S. diplomats to undermine Cuba's leadership. The well-known independent journalist Raul Rivero was among those being tried Friday in a second day of court proceedings aimed at crushing a small, but growing, opposition movement.
Rivero was being tried alongside Ricardo Gonzalez, the editor of De Cuba, a new general interest magazine publishing the works of Cuban journalists working outside state-controlled media. Prosecutors were seeking 20 years for Rivero and life for Gonzalez after being charged with working with a foreign power to undermine the government. Gonzalez is one of at least a dozen defendants who could face a life sentence. The trials are expected to end early next week with sentences issued days later. ***