Freed Cuban dissident to keep fighting for change
By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA
Associated Press
HAVANA -- A Cuban dissident vowed Sunday to keep up his political
activism and predicted a chaotic future if the country does not further
embrace free-market reform.
Arnaldo Ramos Lauzurique, a 68-year-old economist, was freed on parole
Saturday night - the first of a group of prisoners who had refused to go
into exile if released.
By Sunday, he was the star attraction at a weekly march of the Damas de
Blanco, or Ladies in White, a dissident group made up of the wives and
mothers of 75 activists, social commentators and opposition leaders
including Ramos who were jailed following a 2003 crackdown on peaceful
dissent.
After a meeting with President Raul Castro on July 7, Havana Roman
Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega announced that 52 dissidents still in
prison would be let go over the course of four months. Thirty-nine of
the men were freed and sent into exile in Spain, but progress stalled as
most of the last 13 refused to leave the island.
A Nov. 7 deadline passed without news on the men's fate, but the
government indicated it still planned to make good on its word.
Another one of the 13, Luis Enrique Ferrer Garcia, was also freed after
accepting a deal to go into exile if the title to his house could be
transferred to family members and if he was allowed to return to the
island to visit a brother still in jail. When Cubans leave the island
permanently, they normally must forfeit ownership of any property.
Ramos was serving an 18-year sentence for treason and other crimes. He
said he refused to accept exile because he had done nothing wrong.
"I am a Cuban, and I want to continue with the same activities I was
doing before I was sent to prison," he told journalists at the march.
"What I was doing was not a crime, but rather an act of opposition."
He said he was not impressed by the reforms Castro has announced in
recent months, which include firing a half-million state workers while
offering citizens increased opportunities to work for themselves, set up
businesses and even hire employees.
The new businesses will be limited to 178 approved activities, however,
and entrepreneurs must pay significant taxes. Taxes and required social
security payments could approach a combined 75 percent of earnings in
some cases, though many costs will be deductible.
"Up until now I don't see anything serious in the changes," Ramos said.
"If they don't make it a true and honest economic opening, the island
will fall into stagnation, and with that comes chaos."
Ramos described his time in jail as having "its highs and its lows,"
complaining that the food was terrible and it was hard to stay in touch
with the other political prisoners.
He said authorities gave him the impression that the remaining political
prisoners who have refused to go into exile would be released shortly.
"They made that understood to me without explicitly saying it," he said.
Laura Pollan, a Ladies in White leader whose husband is one of the
dissidents still in jail, said she was very excited about Ramos's
release. After the women finished their short march down Havana's leafy
Fifth Avenue thoroughfare, she and the other 40 Damas each handed Ramos
a white gladiola.
Associated Press writer Paul Haven contributed to this report.
Read more:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/14/1925874/freed-cuban-dissident-to-keep.html#ixzz15NyjOFTB
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