`Your name is a synonym for human dignity'

Welcome to freedom, even though I know that you always were a free man, no matter how many iron bars were between you and sunlight.

You don't know who I am, but we of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights know who you are. Your name already is a synonym for human dignity.

We also understand the conflicting emotions that you are experiencing: the anxiety and confusion of suddenly finding yourself in a strange place, surrounded by strange faces and a strange language; the peace and security of knowing that you are definitively out of the clutch of the Chinese secret police; the sadness of realizing that you will not be able to return home for a very long time, if at all.

We know what you have gone through during the last 18 years. We know about the frustration and impotence of finding yourself at the mercy of an unscrupulous, all-powerful state. We know the feeling of abandonment after months without visits, without news from the outside world, without a smile from a friendly face.

We know of the horrors of watching your body shrivel, your health wither away for lack of decent food and medical attention. We know, because we have gone through the same ourselves.

Half a world apart, our two countries are very much alike. Like your people, Cubans are ruled by a group of ruthless individuals who use an obsolete ideology to justify their endless hold on power. As in China, Cuban prisons are chock-full with people guilty of crimes such as ``enemy propaganda,'' ``conspiracy,'' and ``disclosure of state secrets.''

Like you now, we, too, have been used by our government as political pawns so that the West would stop jabbering about human rights for a while.

That is why we want the same thing, you and I. We want democracy and human rights for our people, and we want the world to help us. We want the free nations of the world to put more pressure -- real pressure -- on your government and on my government, so that you and I can return home to work openly for democracy.

Half a world apart, you and I understand that unrestricted trade with a tyrant will make him only bolder and more repressive.

We are allies, you and I. We are allies against totalitarianism and also against those who pretend to believe that they can help spread democracy while happily making a profit.

You can prove them wrong. Perhaps if they see you now, fresh from a Chinese dungeon, you can make their pockets less deep and their consciences more discernible.

Again, welcome to freedom, Wei Jingsheng.

You will find that there still is much that you can do for China from here in the United States.

Sebastian A. Arcos fled Cuba after being imprisoned for promoting human rights. He now heads the Miami-based Cuban Committee for Human Rights.

His father, Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, after years in a Cuban prison, was released in 1995 to obtain medical treatment for cancer in Miami.

His uncle Gustavo Arcos Bergnes remains in Cuba and continues to promote human rights.

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald