Cuban authorities release taped interviews with some of the relatives of jailed dissidents.

BY NANCY SAN MARTIN AND NAYIVA BLANCO

Cuba on Thursday released videotaped interviews with several relatives of 75 jailed dissidents, confirming the families' fears that their comments to Cuban TV would be manipulated to discredit allegations of prison abuses.

The release came as the U.N. Commission on Human Rights was holding its annual meeting in Geneva, where it has often condemned Cuba for human rights abuses after strong lobbying by U.S. and Western European diplomats.

In visits that began two weeks ago, reporters from Cuba's government-run television interviewed several relatives of the dissidents, sentenced to lengthy prison terms after brief trials a year ago.

The surprise interviews -- Cuba's government-controlled media almost never report on dissidents' activities -- immediately prompted concerns among the relatives that their words would be misused to discredit complaints about poor prison conditions, bad food and water and mistreatments.

DISMISSES COMPLAINTS

Thursday, portions of the interviews were released during a news conference in Havana at which Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque dismissed the complaints as a ``campaign of exaggerations and lies.''

''There is a campaign against Cuba,'' Pérez Roque said, according to Agence France-Presse. He described the charges of mistreatment as ``manipulated, tendentious information . . . lies.''

Pérez Roque then showed a 19-minute film of the wives, mothers and sisters of seven prisoners who have been reported as being in dire health. In the video, the women said their loved ones are receiving good medical care in prison hospitals.

In telephone interviews from Havana, the wives of two of the jailed dissidents told The Herald that they felt manipulated by the Cuban television interviews.

''The problem is that nobody had a chance to prepare,'' said Margarita Borges, whose husband, Edel José García, 58, was sentenced to 15 years. ``I was so nervous that I couldn't think.''

The two women said the interviews started on March 14. At least one interview was conducted in Santa Clara, in central Cuba. They lasted about 30 minutes and focused on the medical treatment that their husbands have received, they said.

''I felt depressed and cried a lot after the interview when I figured out what they could do,'' said Dulce María Amador, whose husband Carmelo Díaz is serving a 16-year sentence. ``I said the truth. I didn't lie, and if they manipulate it then that's a different story.''

It was not clear whether the two women interviewed by The Herald were among the seven included in the government video shown Thursday.

Amador, 42, said she became suspicious when the reporter only wanted to know about her husband's health and their prison wedding, while ignoring her pleas for her husband's freedom.

The Cuban TV interviewer ''had specific questions and knew everything about our situation,'' Amador said.

According to both women, the reporter also asked about their husbands' personal hygiene, eating schedule, reading materials, visitation rights, and any type of torture or mistreatment.

The women said they told the interviewer that although their husbands were not mistreated by authorities, they did not belong in jail.

''I am not pleased. I would be pleased if my husband was free,'' Borges said she told the Cuban reporter.

ALERTED OTHERS

Immediately after being interviewed, Borges and Amador called other wives and relatives to prepare them in case the TV crew showed up at their homes.

The crew did visit at least one other home but was turned away.

''If they would have called me a day before, I would have thought about it and said no, but they surprised me,'' Amador said.

Pérez Roque said Cuba ''does not have a vengeful attitude'' toward the dissidents, adding that Cuba is ''fulfilling minimum United Nations requirements on treatment of prisoners,'' Agence France-Presse reported from Havana.

He said prisoners are treated with ''respect for their physical and moral well-being,'' and ``receive adequate medical attention, good food. They do not sleep on the floor but on a bed with a mattress, and are not in darkened cells or in isolation.''