BY MARTIN PALOUS

The era of Fidel Castro, the planet's longest-serving dictator, is coming to an end. His oppressive, totalitarian regime remains in power, but its gloomy, hopeless reality is representative of the past. It stands in sharp contrast to the expectations and noble ideals that animated Cuba's revolution. For the future, something new is in the air: anticipation.

Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis -- times change and people change with them. Growing numbers of Cubans, on the island and worldwide, are discussing a transition to democracy, which has a strong international underpinning. Although geographically distant, in terms of political experience, the Czech Republic is close to Cuba. Consider these points:

• Castro's persecution of dissidents and seemingly endless violations of fundamental rights and freedoms has wrought a vocal, international sense of solidarity with these prisoners of conscience as well as moral, political and material support.

When the U.N. Commission for Human Rights holds its annual session in Geneva this spring, an unequivocal signal must be sent to Havana that imprisoning 75 dissidents is a blatant violation of its international obligations.

Freedom for Oscar Biscet, Raúl Rivero, Martha Beatriz Roque and other dissidents should be a condition for any serious international engagement and cooperation. Oswaldo Payá and his Varela Project, Vladimiro Roca and others in the Todos Unidos (All United) Movement ought to be praised for their demands that Cuba's government respect human rights.

The reawakening of civil society is essential to a transition into a functioning, prosperous democracy. The repeated calls for a national dialogue and reconciliation should be given attention and supported internationally.

The United States and the countries of the European Union and Latin America should join together to pass a strongly worded resolution. In the past, the Czech Republic successfully initiated such action, and although not currently a member of the commission, is ready to assist again.

• Not only are human rights being defended and a civil society emerging in Cuba (reminding Czechs of our past), but a more-political and multifaceted debate on transition is also taking place there.

About this, too, we Czechs can offer our experience, especially on the difficult moral, legal, political and economic issues that we had to work through in our own transition.

There is a paradox to be emphasized, a mystery whose solution is the key to any successful democratic transition: Democracy requires a plurality of opinions.

The free competition of ideas and opinions not only brings out the best of the new realities; it also distinguishes democracy from autocratic forms of government. Yet fruitful competition is always based on a fundamental consensus among relevant parties.

In Cuba's case, I see two major, relevant parties: Cubans on the island who advocate freedom and a democratic Cuba, and the Cubans in the United States and elsewhere in the world. One of Castro's strategic weapons is, and has been, to keep Cubans divided, to separate those under his domination from those elsewhere whom he pejoratively calls ``the Miami mafia.''

To overcome Cuba's stagnation and to start its journey toward the future requires a fundamental agreement on the principles of unity, or convergencia and todos unidos.

Isn't it time, therefore, to talk seriously about reunification and reconciliation of the Cuban nation so that Cuba can find and take its place among free, democratic and prosperous nations? Isn't it evident that Cuba needs a renewed national consensus, deliberatively achieved within a contemporary international framework?

In today's world, Castro's Cold War scenarios and rhetoric are outdated and irrelevant.

I am an outsider, but I am adding my voice to the voices of Cuban dissidents looking toward the future and calling for a really open national dialogue in which all Cubans could participate.

The Czech experience confirms that this is the only way to begin a successful transition to democracy. It is the only way to renew and reformulate what was lost in decades of a totalitarian regime: the basic ''social contract'' that can steer Cuba through the seas of international politics on a successful voyage to democracy.

Martin Palous is ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United States.