Dissident coalition in Cuba pushes for release of political prisoners

Dissident coalition in Cuba pushes for release of political prisoners
Published on Saturday, March 31, 2007

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): A newly organized dissident coalition in Cuba
launched a campaign Thursday to free political prisoners, promising to
take its fight to international courts.

The National Constitutionalist Alliance groups 225 organizations with a
total of some 3,000 members, according to its director Angel Polanco.

Polanco said the campaign would seek to gather 250,000 signatures in the
only one-party communist nation in the Americas, and pass them on to the
International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

He also said that if the Cuban government rejects the request, the group
would call for a day of peaceful civil disobedience across Cuba,
something that has never happened in almost half a century of communist
rule.

The outlawed but officially tolerated Human Rights and National
Reconciliation Commission says there were 283 political prisoners at the
end of 2006, 50 fewer than the previous year.

After almost five decades under the tight grip of Fidel Castro, 80, who
called them "mercenaries" at the service of the United States,
government opponents initially kept a low-profile when the ailing
strongman handed over to his younger brother Raul Castro, 75, on July
31, four days after undergoing intestinal surgery.

Dissidents have since become increasingly vocal, distributing statements
to foreign media, politicians, governments and human rights groups.

And the death on January 10 of political dissident Miguel Valdes Tamayo,
who had been released from prison in 2004 for medical reasons, has
helped galvanize opposition.

But they also remained cautious, and pessimistic of significant reforms
under the younger Castro, who has stressed the Communist Party, is the
true successor to his older brother.

Oswaldo Paya, a Cuban dissident who won the European Union's Sakharov
Prize in 2002 for his efforts to achieve peaceful democratic opening,
unveiled a new plan almost a year ago called "All Cubans," seeking a
democratic and legal transition in Cuba.

Inspired by the Varela Project he spearheaded earlier, the plan calls
for a Cuban transition that would begin from within the current system,
with a referendum vote.

Many other Cuban dissidents support change only outside the existing system.

The referendum Paya is promoting calls for amendments to the existing
constitution and other laws, to pave the way for peaceful transition in
Cuba.

Paya's earlier attempt for a referendum saw thousands of supporters'
signatures delivered to the National Assembly in a bold move that was
the first of its kind in decades in Cuba.

Fidel Castro's government rejected that effort.

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