A young Cuban and his South Florida cousin, both jailed in Cuba for one year as members of a ``belligerent'' opposition group, have gone on a hunger strike to demand a trial, relatives say.

Police grabbed Noel Ramos, 23, who lived in West Palm Beach, three days after he arrived in Cuba on Oct. 27, 1996, his second trip to the island since his family came to the United States in 1989.

Arrested along with Ramos in the small town of Placetas, 150 miles east of Havana, were his cousin, Emis Marti, 26, and three other people accused of belonging to the ``Elpidio Valdes Commandos'' opposition group.

Hooded group members went out at night to paint slogans and spread leaflets attacking President Fidel Castro and once traveled to Havana to drop off leaflets there, friends in Miami said.

Members are ``belligerent but not violent,'' the friends added, and represent a break from traditional opposition groups that have limited themselves to rhetorical attacks on Castro and avoid aggressive actions.

The group is named after a Castro-era cartoon character, a fictitious colonel in Cuba's war of independence from Spain. It is the first domestic opposition group to assume a description as militant as ``commandos.''

All five of those arrested have refused Cuban police demands that they sign confessions to acts of terrorism, sabotage and counterrevolutionary crimes, according to Ramos' father, Marcelino.

``They were jailed for false reasons. These are fabricated charges that put their lives in danger,'' Marcelino Ramos said Saturday during a news conference called to pressure Havana to bring the two cousins to trial.

Noel Ramos and Emis Marti went on a hunger strike last week to demand a trial, the father said.

The three others were identified only as Anai Miel, 20, Amaury Perez, 25, and Reina Isabel Rojas, 53. They were released from jail and put under house arrest shortly afterward, Ramos' father said.

Because of Noel Ramos' participation in the Elpidio Valdes Commandos, Cuban police have tried to accuse the five of being directed by exiles abroad, said Cuban human rights activists knowledgeable about the case.

But the Commandos is a home-grown group that recruited Noel Ramos when he returned to Placetas to visit a girlfriend, the activists added.

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald