The Poet and the Despot ***RAUL RIVERO, Cuba's foremost independent journalist and one of its best poets, knew for years that he could be arrested at any moment by Fidel Castro's police, simply because he dared to report and write freely about his country. But he refused to be intimidated. "Nobody, no law, can make me take on the mentality of a gangster or other criminal simply because I report the arrest of a dissident or bring to light the prices of the basic alimentary products for survival in Cuba or edit a note saying that it seems like a disaster to me that more than 20,000 Cubans leave their homeland each year for exile in the United States," he wrote in 1999. "Nobody can make me feel like a criminal, an enemy target or a turncoat. . . . I am merely a man who writes. One who writes in the country where I was born."***
President greets freed Cubans - Slams Dictatorships*** At mid-afternoon at the White House, Bush met with 11 Cuban exile activists, one-time prisoners and their relatives. The meeting was closed, but the exiles emerged to the driveway to speak to journalists. ''He said categorically that the embargo is supported by this administration,'' said Angel de Fana, who spent 20 years in Cuban prisons before leaving for exile. ``There is no way that he is going to reduce the pressure on this oppressive regime.''
`SATISFIED' Another exile, Isabel Roque, broke into tears as she approached a microphone. ''We leave here satisfied,'' said Roque, sister of dissident economist Martha Beatriz Roque, who was given a 20-year jail term in a sweeping crackdown last month. ``He [President Bush] will not abandon us. Rest assured that this president is on our side.'' White House aides said the scheduled half-hour meeting stretched to a full hour. ***