Dissidents make little progress, say they could be jailed at any time

By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News

HAVANA – The toothbrush tells it all.

Martha Beatriz Roque carries it in her purse 24/7 because she fears she could be thrown in jail at any moment.

One of Cuba's best-known political dissidents, she leads a precarious existence. And she seems to be making little headway against Fidel Castro, who remains popular among many Cubans. But she continues her lonely fight.

"I have to do something for my people – and for me," she said over dinner in Havana.

Ms. Beatriz Roque, 59, and other Cuban dissidents have strong support in Washington, where U.S. officials have vowed to keep pressing for a change of government in Cuba.

How it will happen isn't at all clear.

While campaigning for re-election, Mr. Bush announced measures to tighten the longtime ban on trade with Cuba. Critics said he was pandering to South Florida's Cuban-American community. But James Cason, the chief U.S. diplomat in Cuba, said that "is not what this president is about."

Mr. Bush is committed to seeing a rapid, peaceful democratic transition in Cuba, Mr. Cason said. And he's counting on the island's political opposition to help.

Hundreds of dissidents oppose the socialist government. But their movement is divided and heavily infiltrated by government spies.

The opposition got some relief in recent weeks when Cuban authorities released seven jailed dissidents. Cuba watchers said the government probably freed them to improve relations with Spain, which broke with the Castro regime in 2003 after the jailing of 75 dissidents.
 

'Master puppeteer'

But the gesture doesn't mean the Cuban government is suddenly turning democratic, some say.

"Castro is a master puppeteer. He released a few people, but he's also been arresting people," Mr. Cason said. "It's a tactical thing."

Ms. Beatriz Roque agreed, saying Mr. Castro still has the opposition in a vice grip.

"He opens up a little with the right hand but closes a lot with the left hand," she said.

Castro loyalists have a very different view of the dissidents, saying they have little support in the country and are propped up, financed and guided by the U.S. government.

"There is no punishment in this country for expressing ideas that are different than those of the government," said Roberto de Armas, a senior official at the Cuban Foreign Ministry. "What's not tolerated is collaborating with a foreign government to overthrow the Cuban government."

The four-decade ban on trade with Cuba is the toughest economic embargo imposed on any nation in history, he and other Castro loyalists add. It has caused billions of dollars in damage to the Cuban economy, and officials would like a change – they want normal relations with the United States.

"The Cuban government is not the enemy," Mr. de Armas said. "We don't portray Americans as people who eat children or have large fangs dripping blood."

But given the U.S. government's hostility toward Cuba, relations between the two nations remain at a low point, he said, and "it's not a realistic scenario" that Mr. Castro will meet with Mr. Bush anytime soon to negotiate.

Mr. Bush said in May 2002 that he would soften the embargo if Mr. Castro gave a sign that he was willing to move toward democracy and announce, for instance, free elections or economic reforms.

"That was a genuine offer," Mr. Cason said, "and the answer was, 'Hell no.' "
 

Castro loyalists

Castro loyalists counter that Cuba is a sovereign nation and that the United States should stay out of its affairs. They insist that the vast majority of the Cuban people support the socialist system. And they vow to continue to improve it, putting a strong emphasis on education.

Castro loyalists say Internet use in Cuba will grow massively over the next five years, surpassing that of all other Latin American nations.

Already, the Cubans have converted Lourdes, a former Soviet spy station, into a computer school. About 4,000 Cubans study there now, and that will grow to 10,000 within three years, Mr. de Armas said.

The educational push shows that the Cuban government is committed to allowing freedom of expression, said Lisando Otero, a Cuban writer and winner of the country's prize for literature in 2002.

"People spend all day criticizing the government," he said. "That shows the Cuban people have never been freer than they are now."

American officials don't buy the argument and say Mr. Castro is steadily losing the support of the island's youths.

"Young people don't believe in the revolution anymore," Mr. Cason said. "They're into hip-hop and putting ring piercings in their navels."

Ms. Beatriz Roque said it's not just young people who are unhappy.

"All Cuban people are dissidents. They don't want this. They want to live better," she said.

Accused of subverting the Cuban government and working as an agent of American authorities, she and 74 other dissidents were jailed in the spring of 2003. Ms. Beatriz Roque received an 18-year prison sentence but was unexpectedly released this summer.

Still, she and other released dissidents say they don't feel safe.

"We could go to jail again anytime," she said. "We are out of jail, but we are not free."