Anti-Castro March
Blocked, Arrests Reported in Cuba
2.53 p.m. ET (2003
GMT) November 10, 1999
Several small opposition groups had called for a march
Wednesday morning from a Havana park to urge freedom for
political prisoners and to protest alleged human rights' abuses
by President Fidel Castro's government.
But the four main organizers of the march were temporarily
detained ahead of the event, which had not been expected to draw
a large crowd in a rare public show of discontent by Cuba's
scattered dissidents.
One organizer was held last week, and the others detained
Tuesday, according to the nongovernmental rights' group, the
Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
At the planned site of the event, Parque Dolores in the
Lawton neighborhood of Havana, several hundred members of
communist youth organizations including schoolchildren staged a
noisy pro-government rally and party.
Groups of men, apparently plainclothes security officials or
members of Cuba's Rapid Response Brigades, watched the park
closely, some speaking into walkie-talkies and tracking the
movements of foreign correspondents covering the event.
At one point, a man, apparently a dissident, began speaking
with journalists, before being booed, chased by the crowd, and
struck several times, witnesses said. He was detained and driven
off in a car.
A second man was also later detained and led away after he
began speaking with reporters.
In the fracas, a camera belonging to TV network CNN was
damaged with a hammer-blow.
During the youth act, speakers said they were celebrating
Cuba's victory against the United States in Tuesday's United
Nations' vote on the economic sanctions on Havana, and were also
extending a welcome to heads of state from Latin America, Spain
and Portugal ahead of next week's summit.
The speakers also said they were celebrating the 480th
anniversary of the foundation of Havana.
"Long live the Revolution! Long live the (Communist) Party!
Down with the Yankee blockade!'' the crowd cried.
"The street belongs to the people, to Fidel, to the Party,
not to these worms,'' one man said, when asked why the apparent
dissident was chased down the street.
The Havana-based Commission for Human Rights also reported
Wednesday that another 15 to 20 dissidents had been temporarily
detained in Cuban provinces to prevent their participation in
opposition activities planned for this week.
Dissident groups said that as well as the detentions, dozens
of activists had received warnings from security officials, been
told not to leave their homes, or been ordered not to travel
from the provinces to Havana.
Castro went on live television last week to name various
''counter-revolutionary ringleaders'' and denounce an alleged
U.S.-sponsored plot to sabotage the Nov. 15-16 summit.
His foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, reiterated at a
news conference Tuesday that visiting heads-of-state will be
free to meet with dissidents if they want, but any illegal
activities by the activists will not be tolerated.
As well as Wednesday's planned open-air protest, other
dissident groups are calling a series of meetings and
declarations around the annual Ibero-American event, which is
being held in Cuba for the first time.
Anti-Castro Cuban exile groups in Florida are also said to
be planning protests, including a flotilla of boats near to
Cuban waters, around the summit.