BY ALFONSO CHARDY

  The leader of the U.S. government's assistance programs directed at Cuba said no money from his agency goes to Cuban dissidents.

  ''That's absolutely untrue,'' said Adolfo Franco, assistant administrator for the Agency for International Development who's in charge of the Latin American and Caribbean bureau. "It's false.''

  Senior Cuban officials have pointed to U.S. government support of dissidents as justification for a wave of repression that has resulted in the arrests of scores of
  dissidents.

  In a recent news conference in Havana, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque specifically accused the U.S. Agency for International Development of secretly sending money to dissidents to undermine the ruling communist system.

  In an interview with The Herald late last week, Franco acknowledged that AID finances programs to promote democracy in Cuba through various private groups, including major organizations in Miami.

  Some of the largest grants go to the University of Miami and Florida International University, totaling more than $2 million. In all, AID records show, the agency planned to disburse about $5 million to Cuban democracy programs in fiscal year 2002.

  Franco explained that the money goes to organizations in the United States that provide dissidents with support services such as training, office supplies and books.

  ''What we support is the promotion of free expression and ideas,'' Franco said in a telephone interview from his office in Washington. ``Those are the same values we hold in the United States.''

  Pérez Roque claimed AID itself had stated that $22 million represented ''just a tiny part of the funds channeled to Cuba,'' which he claimed supported ''subversion'' in Cuba. AID records show that from 1996 to 2001, the agency provided $12 million to 22 groups to promote peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.

  Citing a specific case, Pérez Roque said a dissident writer named Oscar Espinosa Chepe ``received, between January of 2002 and January of 2003, in one year, according to the receipts and bills, $7,154.''

  Pérez Roque said Cuban officials later found, in Espinosa Chepe's home, money hidden in the lining of a suit totaling $13,660. Pérez Roque said the money came from CubaNet, a Cuban news website operated from offices in Coral Gables. Pérez Roque noted that CubaNet gets AID grants.

  AID records show, and CubaNet officials confirmed, that AID supplied CubaNet with $833,000 as of May 2002.

  But Rosa Berre, a CubaNet editor, told The Herald that no AID money was sent to Espinosa Chepe.

  ''That's prohibited,'' she said, adding that the $7,154 came from CubaNet funds and from a Paris-based journalist support group known as Reporters Without Borders.

  The rest of the money, Berre said, was Espinosa Chepe's own savings.

  Espinosa Chepe was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison after writing critical articles about the Cuban economy for Internet sites in Miami.