HAVANA (AP) -- The president of Cuba's parliament, Ricardo Alarcon,
                  on Tuesday sent a letter to other congresses around the world defending the
                  recent passage of a law targeting political dissidents as a necessary measure
                  against U.S. aggression.

                  With so much international news coverage of the law, Alarcon said he
                  wanted to ensure that lawmakers in other countries didn't get the wrong
                  idea.

                  "Some (news) agency dispatches said that the death penalty was
                  contemplated, that even mere intentions would be condemned, that even the
                  foreign press was among the supposed victims," Alarcon wrote. "Nothing of
                  the like was ever in there, not in the first draft nor in the discussion and, of
                  course, not in the final document."

                  The Cuban parliament recently passed the "Law for the Protection of the
                  National Independence and the Economy of Cuba," a crackdown on
                  dissidents. The same week, lawmakers revised the penal code to expand the
                  death penalty and lengthen sentences for common crimes.

                  The timing of the two measures created confusion among some media
                  outlets, who erroneously interpreted the changes in the criminal code as
                  applying to dissidents.

                  Both measures created an international stir last month when they were
                  approved by lawmakers.

                  The law, aimed especially at "independent journalists" who have no ties to
                  any government organization, seeks to punish those who undertake acts
                  deemed to further aggressive U.S. policies toward Cuba, such as the
                  three-decade-old embargo and subsequent moves to strengthen it.

                  Generally considered political dissidents by the government, those journalists
                  are often in contact with American news organizations based in Miami.
                  Some regularly provide information to the U.S. government's Radio Marti,
                  whose stated purpose is to help force a change in Fidel Castro's
                  government.

                  The law comes at a time that Cuba feels under heavy attack from its
                  neighbor to the north. In recent days, it has railed in the government press
                  against dissidents, foreign journalists, and a Salvadoran on trial for terrorism,
                  accusing all of working with the American government and Miami-based
                  exiles to undercut the communist system.

                  Shortly after the law was passed, four of Cuba's best-known dissidents went
                  on trial in a closed courtroom, charged with sedition for encouraging Cubans
                  not to vote, Cuban exiles to tell their relatives on the island to undertake acts
                  of civil disobedience, and foreign businessmen not to invest their money in
                  the island nation.

                  The verdicts from the March 1 trial are pending.

                  That trial, along with the passage of the law, received broad coverage by the
                  international news media -- even though reporters were excluded from the
                  hearings.

                  Currently, the government is allowing media access to another trial
                  considered of national security importance -- that of Raul Ernesto Cruz
                  Leon, a Salvadoran charged with a string of 1997 hotel explosions that killed
                  one man and injured 11 others, including seven foreigners.

                  During the trial, the prosecution is emphasizing the alleged involvement of the
                  U.S. government and Miami exiles in the attacks.

                  "Due to the North American hostility, the situation of Cuba is extremely
                  peculiar," Alarcon wrote lawmakers around the world. "Against us, they
                  have shown all of the varieties: economic war, invasion, mercenary activity,
                  threat of nuclear attack, sabotage, attempts to assassinate various Cuban
                  leaders and a long list of aggressive actions."

                  The dissidents play an important role in that campaign, he insisted.

                  "The organization of an internal opposition financed and directed by the
                  United States has been since the beginning one of its objectives," said the
                  parliamentary leader.

                  "Faced with those realities, we can do nothing less than defend ourselves,"
                  he added.

                  Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.