Oswaldo Payá, Colin Powell meet

  BY TIM JOHNSON

  WASHINGTON - Oswaldo Payá, an acclaimed opponent of Fidel Castro visiting the United States, received a shower of praise from the Bush administration on Monday and promised to travel to South Florida ''in a matter of days or weeks'' to hear out a group of Cuban exiles who question his methods for seeking democratic change in Cuba.

  Payá met with Secretary of State Colin Powell and crisscrossed Washington for other meetings, saying that he is seeking U.S. ''solidarity and moral support'' but nothing else.

  ''We have not come to ask for measures. In reality, we have not come to ask for anything,'' Payá said in a brief news conference.

  Payá has received growing international acclaim for spearheading Project Varela, which calls for a national referendum on open elections, civil liberties, free enterprise and freedom for political prisoners in Cuba. Last May, Payá and other supporters of the project submitted a petition to Cuba's National Assembly with 11,000 signatures of Cubans demanding the referendum.

  Payá said he and Powell discussed the civic movement as well as the four-decade-old U.S. embargo of Cuba in a cordial meeting.

  Payá told Powell that change in Cuba must come from within the island and that he hopes Cubans will focus less on U.S. policies -- such as the embargo -- and search for their own avenues to freedom, said a Bush administration official present at the 20-minute meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity.

  Powell ''expressed his admiration for the efforts that Mr. Payá is making as an organizer of Project Varela,'' said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. ``His petition drive provides a way for the Cuban people to express their desire for rapid, peaceful transition to democracy.''

  Payá said he is trying to balance an itinerary that may include a visit to the Vatican but will definitely include travel to South Florida within ``the next week, 10 days.''

  He said he wants to open a dialogue with members of the Cuban exile community who may not agree with his strategy to seek peaceful, democratic change in Cuba through mechanisms in a constitution designed by Castro's communist government.

  ''I will speak with anyone who wants to listen. And I will listen to anyone who wants to speak with me,'' said Payá, a 50-year-old medical equipment engineer and devout Catholic.

  ''Those who oppose the Project Varela not only deserve respect but also deserve to be listened to,'' Payá said.

  While polls show that many Cuban-Americans admire Payá, some 10 small Cuban-American organizations last week issued a joint statement in Miami asserting that Payá's efforts are not viable. The groups said Payá and his supporters give legitimacy to Cuba's National Assembly, judiciary and communist system without explicitly demanding an end to the one-party state in Cuba.

  ''We feel it is important to establish that Cuba's internal opposition is much larger, varied and extensive than Project Varela,'' said the statement, which was signed by groups representing Bay of Pigs veterans, physicians, former political prisoners and other exile groups. Those groups did not include the Cuban American National Foundation, the largest exile advocacy group.

  Payá's efforts to bring peaceful change to Cuba have caught a whirlwind of attention abroad.

  Last month, Payá received the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and in September the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs awarded the Cuban dissident its W. Averell Harriman Democracy Award.

  Payá was barred from leaving Cuba in September to pick up the award, but received the honor at a belated reception Monday night.

  After the reception, Payá said domestic pressures in Cuba are surging.

  ''There is more tension, more exhaustion,'' he said. ''People pass time seeing fewer options for change.'' While more Cubans have signed the Project Varela Project, and citizen committees have sprouted around the island, ``there is more repression.''

  Much of his visit was kept low-key, partly to prevent problems upon his return to Cuba.

  Payá said supporters of Castro vandalized his Havana home the day before his departure and posted signs threatening him with death.