By Andrew Smith, Staff ReporterOVER THE past six weeks, the Cuban government has arrested 78 dissidents, executing three and imprisoning 75. This signifies another peak in tensions between President Fidel Castro and the United States as they struggle for Cuban hearts and minds. In May 2002, Cuba was added (along with Syria and Libya) to President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" and since last September the new head of the US Interests Section in Havana, James Cason, has met regularly with Cuban opposition members and journalists. The conviction of the dissidents is seen as retaliation for contact between the opposition and the Americans. Among the dissidents convicted were 28 independent journalists who were imprisoned for periods ranging from six to 28 years.
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS IN CUBA
Journalists in Cuba are divided into two groups, independent and those working for the Government-controlled media. The Cuban constitution bans the private ownership of the media and according to convicted journalist and poet Raul Rivero, the independent press "cannot publish in their own country, does not have access to official information, and lives under the pressure of decrees, provisions and laws that allow the Cuban government to jail them with the appearance of legality". This has forced Cuba's 100 independent journalists, who have emerged since the mid-1990s, to rely on colleagues in the United States and Spain to disseminate their articles via the Internet.
The government's stance towards Cuba's independent journalists is found on the website of the Union of Journalists of Cuba (www.cubaperiodistas.cu): "Independent journalists are not neither journalists nor independent. They are agents to a foreign government that has official politics to exterminate the Cubans by means of the hunger and the illnesses, salaries and to those that, in their immense majority, they disguise of journalists." (sic)
This accusation of independent journalists as agents of a foreign government is in line with the charges brought against them. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the journalists were tried for violating Law 88 which convicts people for "supporting, facilitating or collaborating with the objectives of the Helms-Burton Law, the embargo and the economic war against our people, which are aimed at ruining internal order, destabilising the country and liquidating the socialist state and Cuba's independence". Others were charged with violating Article 91 of the penal code for acts against, "the independence or the territorial integrity of the State".
JOURNALISTS' PRISON
According to the international press freedom news agency, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), these convictions makes Cuba the world's biggest prison for journalist. Thirty independent journalists are now behind bars in the communist state, more than China, Burma or Eritrea. Apart from being behind bars, the journalists are constantly harassed and subject to house arrest, public insult and slander, confiscation of equipment and denial of exit visas.
Before his arrest, Raul Rivero was subject to all of these measures. He could not accept invitations by overseas organisations to receive awards because his passport could be stamped, "permission for a final departure and for a definitive period." Not wanting to go into exile, he has experienced "courteous" police visits and finally conviction.
Among Raul Rivero's crimes are the founding of the Sociedad de Periodistas Manuel Marquez Sterling (SPMMS) with Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso. The SPMMS was founded in 2001 to promote freedom of expression, train independent journalists, defend journalistic ethics and provide moral and financial support to its members. From its inception it has been targeted by the state and banned from giving training course. Both men have both been sentenced for twenty years.
INTERNATIONAL OUTRAGE
Ever since the conviction of the 78 dissidents an international outcry has been raised. The United Nations Human Rights Commission requested Cuba to allow an investigator to visit the island. This was firmly rejected by the Foreign Minister who said, "we feel that there are not really reasons to justify the appointment of a special United Nations human rights representative to Cuba."
Several European Union (EU) countries are considering cutting back cultural, business and unilateral friendship programmes with Cuba. This is a reversal of the EU's moderate attitude to the Cuban government which is at variance with the United States' 41 year trade embargo. Pope John Paul II added his voice to the condemnation by calling on President Castro for, "a significant gesture of clemency towards those convicted."
MOBILISING INTERNATIONAL ACTION.
Media groups have been at the forefront of mobilising international action. The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) has requested the intervention of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the International Court of Justice, and regional governments. The CPJ sent a letter to Cuban President Fidel Castro in which they "strongly condemn the Cuban government's latest crackdown on the independent press." They "strongly believe that these journalists have been imprisoned solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." On April 24, RSF activists chained themselves to the railings of the Cuban Embassy in Paris in protest of the imprisonment of the journalists. They were subsequently attacked by embassy staff.
Before the arrests of these dissidents it was felt that Fidel Castro's government attitude towards independent journalists was mellowing. This has been proved incorrect, and was reinforced last weekend when he referred to the dissidents as mercenaries working for the United States government. He also accused the USA of trying to destabilise Cuba to provide an excuse for military intervention.
At least 30 independent journalists are now behind bars in Cuba for wanting to pursue their profession unhindered. Yet their colleagues will continue the struggle, because as Raul Rivero wrote in 2001 in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion:, "No one can make me feel like a criminal, or an enemy agent, or someone who does not love his country, or make me believe any of the other absurd accusations the government uses to degrade and humiliate. I am only a man who writes. And writes in the country where he was born, and where his great-grandparents were born."
