From a desolate place of confinement came a resounding plea. It arrived by letter, handwritten in violet ink, from the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where 29 Cuban refugees have been detained, some of them for years.

 Caught in a limbo created by the 1995 migration pact between the Clinton administration and the Fidel Castro government, the 19 men, four women and six children have  been detained since getting picked up by U.S. Coast Guard vessels as they tried to flee the island.

 I detailed their plight last month in this column, piecing together their story from interviews with Miami relatives, friends and advocates. But despite an unreliable system of  communicating with the outside world, one of the refugee women poured her heart into a letter. A relative forwarded it to me.
 `I think my future and all of my dreams have been paralyzed.'

 It describes, better than I ever could, the impotence of a refugee parent before the hypocritical collusion of enemy governments.

 She begins:

 ``Feb. 7, 2001,

 ``I am a Cuban mother who finds herself in the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. My name is Arelys Valladares Prado. I am here with my husband and my two  daughters, one who is 5 years old, the other who is 15.

 ``Today, as sadness and isolation grip my heart, having spent more than a year and a half in this labyrinth, I take the liberty to write to you, to tell you how desperately  lost we are.

 ``I don't think my daughters can stand another day in this waiting, waiting in vain for our situation to be resolved. With each day that passes, I feel as if my life force
 weakens. With my daughters there are four other school-aged children, living the same situation. The mere fact that they have lived two and three years here without
 schooling is a very painful thing.

 ``My daughter says to me, `Mama, what will become of us? What can I possibly study after so much time away from school?' That's when I think my future and all of my  dreams have been paralyzed.

 ``I am disconcerted. How can I give them strength when I don't have it for myself?

 ``. . . To those of us who abandoned our homes and risked our lives at sea, it's hard to conceive that all this time that has been lost will never be recovered.

 ``Please help me, and if it's not too much to ask, and if it's within your possibilities, please publish my letter as soon as you can. Perhaps this way, and with God's help,  the world will know about our case. Please, I am desperate. Don't forget me.''

 At the side of her daughters, 5-year-old Daylenis Valdivia and 15-year-old Dayenis Carpio Valladares, this refugee mother deposits her hope in a new presidential
 administration.

 She fears her family will wind up like a previous group of 23 Cubans resettled in some of the hemisphere's poorest nations, Bolivia and Honduras. Those who wound up in  Bolivia languish far from their family and support systems. Despite promises to the contrary, they have not been granted work permits, legal advocates say.

 For Valladares Prado and many of the others still in the base, there are relatives in Miami ready to take them in. But their fate remains in an administration still in
 transition.

 Hoping to reach the new president himself, the refugee mother also wrote a letter for George W. Bush, who has yet to define his position on the migration pact.

 ``Mr. President, is it a crime to escape the Castro regime, where only those who applaud the Communist system can live in peace? Must our children pay with a
 sentence so depressing?''

 And so cruel.