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Smuggled from a Cuban prison **** These are excerpts from a written interview with Cuban activist Vladimiro Roca, a member of the Internal Dissidence Working Group, who has been in prison since July 16, 1997, for helping draft a manifesto for a peaceful change to democracy, titled The Homeland Belongs to Us All. He was charged with sedition.

…. o Has prison changed you from a human and political point of view?

It's impossible for someone to go through prison and not change his way of acting or thinking. What needs to be specified is in what direction: for good or for bad? It's an extraordinary experience. Politically speaking, imprisonment has strengthened my convictions about the justice of my struggle to achieve democratic changes in Cuba. In prison, one gets to know in depth the system's injustice and true measure. On the human side, my faith in God has increased. He has opened my eyes to the struggle that we must wage to change the material and spiritual conditions of prison life. This element must be incorporated into the struggle for democratic changes.****

President Bush needs to promote a role model in Latin America*** Argentina has defaulted on its foreign debt and is on the verge of political anarchy; Venezuela's democracy is hanging by a thread following bloody riots and a short-lived military coup; Colombia's guerrilla war is intensifying; and several other South American countries suffer growing political unrest. And Latin America as a whole is wondering whether Bush will succeed in convincing the Senate to pass a ''fast-track'' bill to expedite a 34-nation agreement to launch a hemisphere-wide free trade area by 2005. A Senate vote on the issue could come as early as Tuesday and, if approved, the bill would go to the full Congress.

…… What could Bush do? He could take several measures that would give Fox something to show at home, such as giving legitimacy to ID cards Mexican consulates are handing out to Mexican undocumented workers in the United States or submitting migration legislation to Congress to get Washington to focus on the issue. If the Bush administration won't put its full political weight behind the hemisphere-wide free trade zone, and if it's not going to rescue bankrupt countries, the least it should do is help the best performers in the region become democratic and free market success stories. Otherwise, there won't be an incentive for others to follow in their steps. ***