Web-posted: 12:33 a.m. June 1, 2000

Sitting under a sunlit window at the far end of the prison's mess hall, he escaped into the minds of his favorite authors, those chroniclers of the human condition, Joseph Heller and Fyodor Dostoevski. He reread the letters of Churchill, Roosevelt and de Gaulle.

And when he could no longer bear his squalid surroundings, the lice and roaches, inmates hacking with tuberculosis, Felix Bonne, one of Cuba's leading dissidents, retreated into Chapter 27 of For Whom The Bell Tolls.

In its pages, Ernest Hemingway describes a ragtag band of leftist soldiers confronting the forces of Gen. Francisco Franco during the Spanish civil war. Wounded and trapped on a hilltop, they know with icy certainty they will not live to see another day. Still, one of the characters remarks, "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."

Yes. Bonne has learned this lesson well.

He was freed from the Guanajay prison last month after serving almost three years on charges of inciting sedition. But freedom remains elusive.

In the past three weeks, two other prominent Cuban dissidents of the so-called Group of Four, Marta Beatriz Roque and Reni Gomez Manzano, were also released.

The four were arrested on July 16, 1997, and sentenced to terms of up to five years for encouraging Cubans not to vote in that year's elections.

They also held news conferences with international media exhorting foreign business leaders not to invest in Cuba and asking Cuban exiles to encourage protest among relatives on the island.

The group's fourth member, Vladimiro Roca, son of the late Communist Party leader, Blas Roca, remains in solitary confinement in a Cienfuegos prison. Once a month his wife takes a five-hour bus ride to bring Roca treasures like powdered milk, cheese or cookies and the occasional letter of support from a stranger with a foreign return address.

"He's very optimistic and patient," said his wife, Magaly de Armas Chaviano. "He thinks maybe this is a test from God."

Hundreds of other dissidents languish behind bars, and Bonne, Roque and Gomez Manzano know they, too, could go back.

In all the countries of the world there are people who have risked everything for their ideas. History is full of them," said Bonne, 60. "Why should we be any different? We question the communists and that unleashes their anger."

At a recent rally in Miami, about 100 Cuban-Americans held pictures of the island's political prisoners. One by one, they called out their names. The crowd answered each name with a simple message of solidarity: Presente.

Cuban-Americans know that political activism on the island can quickly lead to unemployment and blacklisting. For that reason some Miami activists partnered with the families of jailed dissidents to start Project SOS.

The idea is for the exiles to send $50 a month directly to a political prisoner's family.

So far, about 60 dissident families are being sponsored by American supporters. SOS organizers say they have verified about 500 political prisoners.

Project SOS is the brainchild of Bertha Antunez, whose brother, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, has been jailed since 1990 on a charge of spreading "enemy propaganda." Earlier this month Garcia Perez was moved to the hospital wing of a prison after launching a hunger strike.

In another show of support for the opposition movement, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, last week introduced bipartisan legislation that would allow the U.S. government and humanitarian organizations to send aid such as photocopiers, fax machines and printing presses to the dissidents in Cuba. The bill is in preliminary stages and will require the approval of several committees before being sent to Congress for a vote.

Since their release, Bonne, Roque and Gomez Manzano have been pursued by a flood of foreign reporters.

While they are grateful for the coverage, Roque admits she has not had time for mundane necessities like a new ration book or identification card. She doesn't even have basics like salt and gas in her home.

Bonne has spent the past few weeks getting reacquainted with daily life in Cuba.

Walking through the bustling streets of Havana he was struck by scaffolding covering some of the city's crumbling buildings, projects funded mostly through partnerships with foreign investors. He also noticed the island's increasing dependence on dollars, which is creating a dual economy where pesos are becoming obsolete.

"It's practically impossible for someone without access to dollars to live," Bonne says. "Of course education is free, so is health care and funeral services. But the population is living at a subsistence level."

After 30 years as a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Havana, Bonne was fired in 1992 (though his textbooks are still used) for lending his signature to a letter from a group of professors who demanded democracy.

Roque, an economist, and Gomez Manzano, a lawyer, were also fired from their jobs. While Bonne was in prison, his wife was forced to sell his clothes and jewelry to survive. They now live off sporadic checks from relatives and friends in Miami.

Bonne's voice takes on a tone of frustration, impatience maybe, as he explains the reasons that more Cubans have not joined his cause.

"I feel proud of the group I'm in," Bonne said. "But I don't think we can go forward. We need for the people to come together. But the repression is too strong. You could lose your job, lose opportunities for your children."

Bonne and the others vow to continue their work despite the threat of prison. The Cuban exile community and dissidents on the island consider the early release of Bonne and the others a mere gesture rather than any earnest shift in policy.

In November, the international Ibero-American Summit held in Havana helped spotlight human rights abuses when visiting heads of state met with leading dissidents. Last month the United Nations human rights commission voted to condemn the island for its record of violations. Canada and the European Union, two of Cuba's trade allies, also criticized Fidel Castro.

Dissidents say the Elian Gonzalez saga has created a smokescreen for repression on the island. Massive government-organized rallies have given the impression of Cuban solidarity and nationalistic fervor, even as state security forces increased their low-level harassment of dissidents.

For Ana Rodriguez it is a familiar cycle of oppression and resistance. Though Rodriguez has never met Bonni, she knows his work well. She now lives in Miami's Little Havana, but for 19 years her home was the Guanajay prison, where Bonni was held.

In 1961, as a fourth-year medical student in Havana, Rodriguez was convicted of conspiring against the government.

Rodriguez, 62, thinks the dissidents' biggest triumph has been in drawing international attention to human rights violations in Cuba.

"They are the only ones who are challenging the government," Rodriguez said. "I would want them to be more aggressive, to demonstrate that they have an alternative. Right now the world doesn't have a choice but to contemplate what is going to happen in Cuba. They need to show they are the force of the future."

Vanessa Bauza can be reached at vbauza@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4977.

Copyright 1999, Sun-Sentinel Co. & South Florida Interactive, Inc.