Four Cuban dissidents convicted

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

Drawing a wave of tough foreign condemnations, a Cuban court Monday convicted four of the island's most celebrated dissidents on charges of sedition and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 3 1/2 to 5 years.

The sentences were short enough to make the four eligible for early release to serve the remainder of their terms -- they were jailed in July 1997 -- under parole or house arrest, Western diplomats in Havana said.

But the ruling came as Cuba gave another sign of its determination to brook no opposition -- the official enactment of a Draconian new law setting 20-year sentences for dissidents who support U.S. policies against Cuba.

The four leaders of the Internal Dissidence Working Group were arrested after they issued a harsh attack on the Cuban Communist Party's monopoly on power titled The Motherland Belongs to Us All.

Vladimiro Roca, 56, a former combat pilot and son of the late communist leader Blas Roca, was sentenced to five years. Lawyer Rene Gomez Manzano, 55, and engineer Felix Bonne, 59, received four years, and economist Marta Beatriz Roque, 53, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years. All were charged with sedition.

``It is wrong. It is unjust, Roca's wife, Magaly de Armas, told the Associated Press in Havana, adding that the families planned to appeal the results of the closed-door trial, which was March 1.

Officials and human rights activists abroad immediately condemned the convictions, saying the four were innocent people whose only crime was to oppose the government of President Fidel Castro.

The sentence ``is a sobering reminder to the world of the brutal and unchanging nature of Fidel Castro and his henchmen, said Jorge Mas, vice chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation.

Mas also called on President Clinton to cancel the Baltimore Orioles game in Cuba scheduled for March 28, saying it would be ``a grave insult for Clinton to respond to this brutal affront . . . with the words ``play ball.''

``Anyone who may have thought that `engaging' Castro could have positive consequences no longer has excuse to continue, said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami.

Western diplomats in Cuba reacted with somewhat less gloom, condemning the convictions but noting that the sentences were short enough to make the defendants eligible for early release. Under Cuban law, defendants who have served one-third of their sentences are eligible for parole.

``We're hoping that after having shown their hard nose at the closed-door trial, government officials can now find a way to let these people out of jail early, a diplomat said.

Added Miami-based dissident supporter Ruth Montaner: ``We're monitoring the situation and hoping that these four innocent people receive whatever benefits may come out of this barbaric act.

Prosecutor Edelmira Pedriz had asked for a six-year term for Roca and five years for the three others, alleging that they had aided U.S. plans to subvert Cuba's communist system. The maximum penalty was eight years.

The ``Group of Four became Cuba's best-known dissidents as Pope John Paul II, the European Community, the U.N. Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and other human rights groups made public demands for their release.

They were accused of encouraging acts of civil defiance in Cuba, urging foreigners not to invest on the island, holding news conferences with foreign journalists and urging Cubans to boycott general elections in 1997.

Foreigners living in Havana and close to the Cuban government have predicted the four would receive relatively short sentences and be released soon to appease foreign critics.

A week after their trial, the same State Security court heard the case of a Salvadoran man accused in six Havana bombings in 1997 -- a move apparently designed to highlight the government's argument that such attacks force it to take strong measures to defend itself from domestic dissent.

A second Salvadoran accused in three bombings went on trial in the same court Monday.

Cuba's Government Gazette, meanwhile, published the ``Law for the Protection of the National Independence and the Economy, which threatens sentences of up to 20 years for anyone convicted of ``supporting hostile U.S. policies toward Cuba.

``From now on, because of this legal maneuver, journalists, intellectuals and citizens can be fined . . . and sent to jail for expressing ourselves freely, said CubaPress, an opposition news agency not recognized by the government.