Ex-Prisoners of Castro Reunited : Expatriates: A revered opponent of the Cuban ruler visits the Southland. His account of their homeland’s problems offers hope for a change of government.

The name of Mario Chanes de Armas is spoken with near reverence by some members of the local Cuban community.

He is known to many as the man who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution and was later sentenced to 30 years in prison for speaking out against him. Chanes de Armas arrived in Los Angeles a few days ago to meet with old friends and talk about the growing crisis in Cuba.

The visit marked the first time that three local residents--Sergio Ruiz Hernandez, Rene Cruz and Evelio Alvarez, as well as Eusebio Penavler of Tampa, Fla., had been reunited with Chanes de Armas since the five men served time in Castro’s prisons.

O Chanes de Armas “is like a brother,” said Hernandez, 58, a husky truck driver who moved to Los Angeles after in 1986 after spending 27 years as a political prisoner in Cuba. “I spent more time with Mario than I have with my own family, and now I can’t believe I’m with him again.”

Chanes de Armas was welcomed to a small white house in South Gate that serves as a temporary shelter for recently arrived political prisoners from Cuba.

“I’d say Mario is more than a brother. To many of us who were young when we were sent to prison, Mario is a model, a powerful figure,” said Alvarez, 50. “I was a boy when I arrived in prison. Mario and the others were my teachers who taught me about politics.”

“In prison as a political prisoner, it didn’t matter whose side you’d been on, each of us had defended what we believed in,” said Chanes de Armas. “Life in prison created unity. Ruiz Hernandez was with the secret police, but he and I became friends in prison and we loved one another like family.”

Sentenced in the summer of 1961 to 30 years for planning to overthrow the government, Chanes de Armas had already served a short jail term in 1953 during the rule of Fulgencio Batista because of a failed attack on an army barracks. He was later released and left Cuba for Miami, where he trained until 1956. He returned to fight with Castro in the overthrow of Batista and helped form a new government in 1959.

Chanes de Armas’ visit presents not only a chance to look back at Cuba’s history, but an opportunity to hear an eyewitness account of life today in Havana.

Many of the 20 former political prisoners seated in the garage of Casa Cuba listened attentively as the 65-year-old former revolutionary described the long lines for bread, soap, gasoline and services that are contributing to growing discontent with the Castro government. Although the former prisoners said they do not identify with any single political view, they were in agreement on one thing: Castro must go.

Chanes de Armas, who lived in Havana for nearly two years after his release from prison in July, 1991, moved to Miami this July with his wife, Caridad.

“I am sure I will see Cuba free in my lifetime,” he said. “That’s why I’m here to contribute to this fight, because it’s a disaster over there.”

Los Angeles County’s Cuban community of about 48,000 is relatively small. It has close ties to Miami, where more than half of the 1.2 million Cubans in the United States reside.

“What we have to do here (in Los Angeles) is to echo what Miami does,” said Ildo Peres, a resident of Hawthorne and a member of the Cuban American National Foundation, a powerful organization led by Jorge Mas Canosa.

Although exiles in the United States have long spoken about a “free Cuba” without Castro, some experts now say a change in government is no longer just a hope for the exiled Cubans.

“I think everybody, even people who were sympathetic to the revolution, now realize the situation has reached a critical juncture and the economy has been deteriorating despite recent efforts by the government,” said Edward Gonzalez, a UCLA political science professor and a consultant to the RAND Corp. in Santa Monica.

Gonzalez points to the loss of aid from the former Soviet Union as well as a decline in the island’s ability to produce--this year’s sugar crop was the smallest in nearly 30 years--as key factors for the crisis.

Although some say Castro may weather this latest storm, Chanes de Armas predicts that he will return home along with Ruiz Hernandez, Cruz, Alvarez and the other survivors of Cuba’s prisons.