Castro Risks World’s Ire, Envoy Says

Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists is likely to backfire by angering European and U.S. proponents of human rights and a better relationship with the Communist island nation, the top U.S. diplomat in Havana predicted Monday.

During a visit to Florida that coincided with new strains in an already adversarial relationship, U.S. envoy James Cason described the harsh sentences meted out to leading Cuban dissidents earlier in the day as Castro “shooting himself in the foot” just as momentum was building in America for relaxing a four-decade trade embargo.

“With its recent crackdown against human rights activists and the country’s nascent civil society, the Castro regime has shown that it is willing to risk even the ire of the international community to maintain its central role,” Cason told supporters of the Cuba Transition Project, an academic forum at the University of Miami.

While he was speaking, a court in Havana handed down the first sentences against opposition figures rounded up over the last three weeks and accused of treasonous conspiracy with U.S. provocateurs. The orchestrated campaign to suppress dissent is believed to have elevated desperation among impoverished Cubans and inspired reckless hijackings to escape the repression.

Among those sentenced Monday for allegedly “working with a foreign power to undermine the government” were Martha Beatriz Roque, an economist and vocal critic of Castro’s management of the national economy, and dissident journalist Raul Rivero. Both drew 20-year terms, as did independent magazine editor Ricardo Gonzalez and economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe. Activist Hector Palacios was sentenced to 25 years. Another leading civil liberties advocate, Oscar Elias Biscet, is expected to be sentenced this week.

Previous crackdowns on dissent in Cuba have prompted waves of chaotic emigration. Cason said it was possible, based on past experience, that Castro would offer his opponents the option of U.S. exile instead of prison. U.S. officials in Washington have condemned the arrests and prosecutions as evidence of resurgent “Stalinism” in Cuba. The State Department last week denounced the charges brought against the anti-Communist activists as illegitimate actions of a “kangaroo court.”

Cason observed, however, that the harsh punishment of those whose only crimes were to disagree with the regime is likely to galvanize opposition to Castro in circles into which he had made inroads. Although the United States maintains a strict embargo on trade and interaction with the last bastion of communism in the Western Hemisphere, many European countries have eased similar restrictions in recent years to allow commercial joint ventures and mutually advantageous exports. During an international conference in December, the European Union offered to include Cuba in a trade bloc that would have opened doors to further capitalist investment in the country’s vital but flagging tourism sector.

Democracies such as the Netherlands, Germany and Spain are likely to feel betrayed by Castro’s crackdown, Cason said.

The recent dissident arrests hauled in 78 key advocates of change in Cuba, including many signatories to the so-called Varela Project, which seeks multiparty elections and guarantees of free speech and assembly. The crackdown followed a recent high-profile trip to Europe by Varela Project leader Oswaldo Paya, during which he collected a prestigious human rights prize and addressed numerous political, humanitarian and religious groups. Cason speculated that Paya’s success in drawing world attention to the plight of repressed Cubans was a prime motivation for the current spate of detentions and charges. Paya has not been arrested -- perhaps, Cason said, because the regime is taking a “divide and conquer” approach to its opponents.

Cason denounced the accusations as trumped-up and the crackdown as “coldly calculated to take place while the world’s attention was focused elsewhere.” Relatives of the accused also lashed out at the Castro government for punishing what would be legal behavior in any just society.

“This is so arbitrary for a man whose only crime was to write what he thinks,” Rivero’s wife, Blanca Reyes, told journalists after his sentence was handed down behind closed doors. “What they found on him was a tape recorder, not a grenade.”

European diplomats who tried to attend the proceedings were excluded -- an affront that Cason said probably would erode impressions in some circles on the Continent that Cuba’s problem is with the United States.

“Our allies agree that their policy goal in Cuba is, ultimately, the same as ours: the rapid and peaceful transition to a democratic government,” Cason said.

Communist authorities began rounding up opposition figures March 18 as world attention was focused on the threat of a U.S.-led strike against Iraq.

Castro last month accused Cason of encouraging an anti-Communist insurrection by playing host to dissidents at his Havana diplomatic compound and attending organizational events at the homes of some prominent Castro opponents.

The 76-year-old Cuban leader, who has steadfastly refused to allow the kind of economic and political reforms that led to democratic transitions in Eastern European countries, has denounced Cason for allegedly turning the American mission into an “incubator of counterrevolution.” Castro has threatened to close the huge compound that functions as an embassy, but Cason said he doubted that the Cuban leader would provoke a tit-for-tat expulsion that would deprive Havana of its lobbying office in Washington.