Ailing economist served 15 months
 
By Gary Marx
Tribune foreign correspondent

HAVANA -- Only hours after her release Thursday from prison, one of Cuba's most prominent dissidents pledged to continue working to bring democratic reforms to this nation's one-party state.

"Prison doesn't erase ideas. The ideas continue there," said Martha Beatriz Roque, 59, an economist and the only woman among the 75 opposition figures incarcerated last spring by Cuban President Fidel Castro.

"In prison I lost 22 pounds, but my mind is the same as when I entered," said Roque, who served 15 months of a 20-year prison sentence.

A former university professor, Roque is the seventh dissident to be released since April. All of them, including Roque, suffered various health problems while incarcerated.

Cuban officials have not commented on why the seven dissidents were released. But Roque credited her freedom at least in part to the intense pressure placed by the international community on the Cuban government.

"Everyone in the world knows that we were put in prison unjustly," she said.

The United States, the European Union and international human-rights groups have repeatedly condemned the incarceration of the 75 opposition figures, who last spring were given up to 28 years in prison.

Eric Olson, an official for the human-rights group Amnesty International, said Roque's release was "very welcomed" but added that "we are concerned about the many dozens of ones who are still in prison."

Olson said that 77 "prisoners of conscience" remain in Cuban jails.

Elizardo Sanchez, an activist who heads the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, also described Roque's release as "good news." Yet Sanchez doubts her freedom signals a shift in the Cuban government's attitude toward political dissidents.

Sanchez said Roque and the others were probably freed because Cuban officials fear further international condemnation if a dissident dies in prison.

"It would be a great scandal and have a high political cost," Sanchez said.

Others still jailed

Among the prominent opposition figures who remain incarcerated are Raul Rivero, a poet and independent journalist serving a 20-year sentence, and Oscar Elias Biscet, a physician and activist condemned to 25 years in jail.

Elsa Morejon, Biscet's wife, said Thursday that Roque's release gives her hope that Biscet may soon be released.

Castro has denounced the dissidents as "mercenaries" of an increasingly aggressive U.S. government out to topple Cuba's communist regime.

Castro has recently warned of U.S. plans to invade the island while organizing massive marches to protest President Bush's measures to tighten the 40-year-old trade embargo against the island nation.

The measures recently announced by Bush include a further tightening of money sent by Cubans living in the U.S. to their relatives on the island and a decrease in the number of visits Cuban-Americans can make.

In a statement Monday, James Cason, the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, said the U.S. government has "no intention" of invading Cuba or supporting a "violent overthrow to change the Cuban police state."

"U.S. policy toward Cuba is a rapid, peaceful transition to a democratic, market-oriented Cuba," he said.

A longtime opposition figure, Roque was among a group of dissidents who authored a pamphlet in 1997 sharply critical of the Castro government. She served several years in prison before being released.

Last spring, Roque received a 20-year sentence based in part on the testimony of a longtime assistant, who turned out to be a Cuban government spy.

On Thursday, Roque complained of poor treatment in prison and said she was held for several months in solitary confinement. About a year ago she was transferred to a military hospital in Havana after suffering chest pains, nose bleeds and high blood pressure.

Roque suffers diabetes

It was there that Roque learned for the first time that she was a diabetic. Roque spent the remainder of her time in prison at the military hospital, where she said a light was kept on in her cell 24 hours a day.

It was early Thursday morning when several officials came to Roque's cell and told her she was being freed.

Calling the decision a surprise, Roque said the officials placed no political conditions on her release, something she would have rejected anyway.

Roque said her priority is to work with the international community for the release of the remaining dissidents. She also vowed to continue her efforts for political change.

"We have great problems and we have to continue fighting for space within civil society," Roque said.

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