Posted on 05/07/2002 2:33:43 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA (AP) - Free after nearly five years imprisonment, Cuba's best known dissident, Vladimiro Roca, said Monday that his time behind bars confirmed his conviction that the island's political system does not work and must be changed.
And change, he insisted, is possible through peaceful means - and with President Fidel Castro in power.
"I have never been virulent in my opposition," Roca told The Associated Press a day after being released, two months short of a five-year sentence on charges of inciting sedition and endangering the nation's economy.
"I have reaffirmed the conviction that the system has to be changed because it does not work," he said, sitting on a bench outside the doorway of his Havana home.
Roca's release came exactly a week before former President Carter arrives in the communist country for five-day visit. Some saw the move as a goodwill gesture to Carter, but Roca said he thought his release was unrelated.
The international group Human Rights Watch on Monday applauded Roca's release, but called on the Cuban government to release more prisoners. Activists say they currently have more than 240 documented cases of political prisoners in Cuba.
Roca is well known here because his late father, Blas Roca, was a founding member of the Communist Party of Cuba and remains a revered figure. Vladimiro Roca also has roots in the communist government: he was a military pilot who broke with the system in the early 1990s.
Expelled from his state job working with foreign investment, Roca hooked up with three other Cuban professionals who favored change, engineer Felix Bonne Carcasses, attorney Rene Gomez Manzano and economist Marta Beatriz Roque.
They formed the "Group of Four" and in 1997 published the document that landed them in jail, "The Homeland is for All."
Their statement criticized a draft document issued by the Communist Party before its national congress that year, saying it focused on the glories of the revolution but offered no pragmatic proposals to the nation's economic ills.
The four were convicted behind closed doors in 1999. Bonne, Gomez and Roque received sentences ranging from 3 to four years, and were freed in early 2000.
Roca remained in prison, despite petitions from the Canadian and Mexican governments and the Vatican.
Roca spent most of Monday, his first full day of freedom, fielding telephone calls from friends and journalists.
But he had to cut them short to attend to official business: applying for new national identity documents required by Cuban law. His previous documents were lost, he said, at the time of his July 1997 arrest.
"The thing I missed most was my bed, my own little space," said Roca, who was freed early Sunday from Ariza Prison in the central city of Cienfuegos. Nevertheless, he slept little his first night back home because of "an excess of nervous energy." He said he thinks when he finally relaxes, he'll probably sleep three days running.
For the first 2 years of his imprisonment, Roca was kept in a cramped 5-by-6-foot cell, with a small sink; food was passed in on a tray.
"I went in at 72 kilograms, and left at 78 kilograms," he said, chuckling.
During the last part of his imprisonment, Roca shared a larger cell with anywhere from three to six other inmates. Filled with the smell of humidity and filth, Ariza Prison was built for 1,500 men but often holds up to 2,500.
Roca entered prison an atheist, but was baptized Roman Catholic on Sept. 24, 1999 and attributed his new faith with helping him endure imprisonment.
While behind bars, he decided existing laws could be used to bring reform to his homeland.
Roca said that's why he supports the Varela Project, a signature-gathering campaign to force a referendum calling for change.
Project supporters say they have more than the 10,000 signatures needed to force a referendum and plan to present them to the National Assembly later this year.
If placed on the ballot - something officials indicate is doubtful - the referendum would ask voters about an amnesty for political prisoners and individual guarantees, such as freedom of expression and association.
True change, Roca said, will come only through peaceful and legal methods. "I don't seek confrontation, I seek reconciliation," he said.
Castro to Free Vladimiro Roca on Sunday - Gift to Carter ***Roca, along with three other prominent dissidents who had urged political reform on the Caribbean island, was arrested in 1997, convicted of inciting sedition in 1999, and sentenced to five years behind bars including time served. The other three -- economist Martha Beatriz Roque, lawyer Rene Gomez Manzano and academic Felix Bonne -- were sentenced to 3-1/2- to 4-year terms, and released in 2000. Roca, who is his late 50s and is the son of a founding father of Cuban communism, Blas Roca, had been due to complete his sentence and be released in 70 days, de Armas said. The early release appeared aimed at smoothing the way for Carter's May 12-17 visit to Cuba. ***
Anti-Castro Forces Mount Petition Drive *** "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. ***
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