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This article first appeared in the March 5, 2004, issue of The Durango Herald. It is reproduced here by permission of Herald Publisher Richard Ballantine.
U.S. journalists meet with Cuban official, dissident
By Lewis McCool
HAVANA - "Cuba libre!" Free Cuba.
The war cry of an army fighting for independence more than a century ago holds vastly different meanings and reflects vastly different visions depending on whom you talk with in Cuba. To a tourist, it may mean little more than a drink of rum and cola.
But to outspoken dissident Osvalvo Payá, it means social and political change - but not violent change.
And to Rafael Dausá, director of the North American division of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it means the United States should take its hands off Cuban affairs.
Payá leads Cuba's Christian Liberation Movement. He met with 14 journalists from the United States this week at the Havana home of James Cason, the United States Interests Section chief of mission. Cason's rank is equal to ambassador, but the United States has no formal relations with Cuba and no ambassador here.
Since 1959, this isolated and poverty-stricken island has been ruled Fidel Castro, a Communist.
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Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, left, and U.S. Interests Section chief James Cason meet with visiting U.S. journalists at Cason's residence in Havana. |
"During these 45 years, we (the Cuban people) have been victims of a distortion of our own reality," Payá said through an interpreter. "The loss of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly has marginalized the people. This is a time when Cuba needs radical and profound change, but the government resists any reforms."
Payá expressed confidence that change will come, someday, somehow.
"Millions of people are suffering poverty, anguish and oppression," he said. "These conditions favor violent or uncontrolled change."
But he made clear that he wants peaceful change. Payá said he comes from a family with "a history of Catholic activism," but his faith requires him to follow a path of peace.
He is also a leader of Project Varela, named for a 19th-century Irish priest, one of the founders of Cuban nationalism. Central to the project is a petition, signed by thousands of Cubans, asking the National Assembly for economic and political reforms and for the release of political prisoners.
"We created a civic situation so Cubans could express their views of the future," Payá said. "Signing the petition is an act of courage."
So far, more than 25,000 signatures have been presented to the National Assembly.
In most cases, the government's response has consisted of threats, loss of job security and visits from police. For many organizers, it has meant prison.
"The goal," Payá said, "was to repress the first movement that has made a dent in the culture of fear."
He does not know why others associated with the project are in prison while he is not.
"The person who decides if I get jailed is Fidel," Payá said. "I'm in God's hands. I will not try to escape."
In a crackdown in March 2003, 75 dissidents were arrested, swiftly tried, convicted and imprisoned. The Cuban government considers them mercenaries, paid and supplied either directly by the U.S. government or indirectly through right-wing Cuban exiles living in Miami.
During a separate meeting with the visiting journalists at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dausá said "counterrevolutionary agents" received fair trials but were guilty of breaking Cuban laws. They were, he said, "acting against the revolution."
"No one in Cuba is in jail for their beliefs or their signatures on a paper," Dausá said. "They were acting as agents of the United States."
Asked why independent human rights organizations such as the International Red Cross were refused access to the prisoners, Dausá replied, "We respect this organization (the Red Cross), but we had to set some rules."
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Rafael Dausá, director of the North American division of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, discusses U.S.-Cuban relations. |
He accused the United States of holding to a double standard, calling attention to the treatment of "detainees" held in connection with the war on terrorism at the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base, which is on Cuban soil. "They've had no lawyers, no trials," he said.
Dausá also noted restrictions on visits by Cubans - "especially family members" - to five Cuban prisoners in the United States convicted in Miami in 2001, primarily on spying charges.
Dausá called for the end of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. He called it an "economic blockade." He endorsed an end to the restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba and better understanding of the Cuban people by the American people.
"Sooner or later, the U.S. will recognize we have a right to exist, a right to be different," he said.
Before normalized relations can come, the United States demands a relaxation of Cuban government restrictions on the Cuban people. It is the same demand made during the early days of the Cuban revolution 45 years ago and when the embargo was imposed in 1962.
Although Payá vows to continue to work for change, he is less optimistic that it will come in today's political environment.
"There is no evidence that the small group of people in power will be willing to share that power," he said.
But there is no room for hatred or violence in the opposition movement, Payá said.
"Our opponents are fellow human beings," he said. "If you understand Martin Luther King, you understand our movement."