March 19, 1999
By Anita Snow
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HAVANA - Putting worries about domestic dissent above international approval, Cuba sentenced four leading opposition figures to prison terms in one of the country's most important human rights cases in years.
International criticism came quickly after the Havana tribunal sentenced Vladirimo Roca, a former military fighter pilot and son of a revered Communist Party leader, to five years in prison.
Three co-defendants received lesser terms for the crime of ``inciting sedition'' against the government of Fidel Castro. The four had been arrested in 1997 for publicly criticizing Communist Party policy.
Monday's verdicts showed that Cuba continues to place more importance on maintaining internal control than on gaining external approval. Havana has taken a tough policy against dissent, saying it is under attack by the U.S. government and Miami-based exiles.
The ruling could damage the relations that Cuba has worked to improve with other nations, particularly in the Caribbean and Latin America. Canada, the Vatican and several European nations have urged Cuba to free the four dissidents.
President Clinton called for the dissidents' immediate release, saying he was ``deeply disappointed'' at the sentencing of ``courageous'' human rights activists.
``They did nothing more than assert their right to speak freely about their country's future, call on their government to respect basic human rights, and seek a peaceful transition to democracy for the long-suffering Cuban people,'' Clinton said in a statement.
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said in a statement Monday that the sentences would cause Canada to ``review the range of our bilateral relations'' with Cuba.
``Cuba sends an unfortunate signal to her friends in the international community when people are jailed for peaceful protest,'' said Chretien, who visited Havana a year ago and whose country is a top economic partner with Cuba.
Communist officials insist there are no political prisoners on this island nation of 11 million people, only those jailed for common crimes. They reject the characterization of the four dissidents as prisoners of conscience.
A five-member tribunal tried the four dissidents behind closed doors March 1. In addition to giving Roca five years, it sentenced lawyer Rene Gomez Manzano and engineer Felix Bonne to four years each, and gave economist Marta Beatriz Roque 3 1/2 years, government television said.
``It is wrong, it is unjust,'' said Roca's wife, Magaly de Armas, who learned of her husband's sentence on the news. She said the defendants would appeal.
The four were arrested in July 1997 for criticizing a Communist Party document. They were also accused of encouraging Cubans not to vote in 1997 elections, holding two news conferences with foreign media, exhorting foreign businessmen not to invest in Cuba and asking Cuban exiles to encourage their kin on the island to undertake acts of civil disobedience.
A report after the trial accused the four of receiving support from organizations in the United States and using U.S.-based media, especially in Miami, and the U.S. government's Radio Marti ``to encourage civil disobedience'' in Cuba.
In another sign of the government's focus on attacks from U.S.-based exiles, the trial began Monday for the second of two Salvadoran men accused of planting bombs in tourist locales - allegedly on orders from Miami exiles.
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