[Cincinatus' Wife]

Cuba's crackdown and America's man in Havana *** Cuban officials became anxious as Mr Cason travelled to meet dissidents in their homes and invited them to his official residence. Mr Castro was piqued when Mr Cason - speaking outside the home of Marta Beatriz Roque, a now-imprisoned dissident - said Cuba was growing fearful of internal opposition. Two weeks later a defiant Mr Castro told the National Assembly that Cuba could "very easily do without the US interests section office". The offensive soon followed. William Leogrande, Dean of the School of Public Affairs at Washington DC's American University, called Mr Cason's "very public stand" the "catalyst" for the crackdown. "The dissidents were not well-served by Cason's very public embrace," he said. "It was as if he were throwing the gauntlet down to the Cuban regime."

Ties between the US interest section and the dissidents were used as trial evidence, as was the testimony of several Cuban security agents who infiltrated the movement. State-run media then published this testimony to discredit the dissidents as mercenaries bankrolled by the US.

While Mr Cason has expressed no regret for his activities, he has curtailed his public engagements while he and other officials reassess how best to support dissidents without jeopardising them. Mr Leogrande noted that remaining dissidents have developed "some effective models of resistance. The Castro regime has no hope of restoring the ideology of the 1970s and 1980s so, just as in eastern Europe, time is on the dissidents' side." But for now the arrests have thrown the dissident movement into a tailspin. Even when the Castro government was relatively permissive of dissident organising, few Cubans knew about their efforts or got involved. Recruitment is certain to be more difficult now that the movement has been criminalised, deeply infiltrated by state agents, and proved so easily dismantled. Vladimiro Roca, a leading Havana dissident and former political prisoner who has so far been spared in the crackdown, said: "Yes, some people may be afraid to join us and we have to rebuild. But what the government has done only reminds us that the future belongs to the dissidents, and that gives us strength. "The government says that we are insignificant groups, that we are 'minuscule'," Mr Roca said. "But what sort of hunter shoots a sparrow with a cannon?"***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Despite crackdown in Cuba, senators push to lift travel ban *** WASHINGTON (AFP) - A group of US senators introduced legislation to lift a ban prohibiting Americans from traveling to Cuba, undeterred by the recent crackdown on dissidents in the Communist island. "After 43 years, it ought to be clear to everyone that the embargo has failed to weaken (Cuban President Fidel) Castro," said Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the main sponsor of "The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act."

"A better approach is to reach out to the Cuban people. Ending the travel ban is the best way to do this," said Baucus, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. Other senators who are co-sponsoring the legislation include senators Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Larry Craig of Idaho, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, and Mark Dayton of Minnesota. ***