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NEWS
Thousands more
sign petition seeking political, economic change in Cuba
Fri Oct 3, 4:02 PM ET
HAVANA (AFP) - In another bold challenge to the Americas' only one-party
communist government, dissident Oswaldo Paya delivered more than 14,000
new signatures backing the Varela Project seeking a referendum on
political and economic change.
"Change in Cuba has begun," Paya told reporters after delivering a box
of papers bearing the signatures to Cuba's National Assembly.
The Varela Project petition requests a referendum on five points --
freedom of expression and association, freedom of enterprise, amnesty
for political prisoners, a new electoral law and, if the referendum is
approved, elections within a year.
"The peaceful changes that Cuba wants and needs will be realized only if
the majority of Cubans are open to freedom and solidarity," Paya said.
More than 11,000 signatures were collected for the petition last year,
but the Cuban legislature threw it out in January, deeming it
unconstitutional.
After delivering the new signatures, 51-year-old Paya went to the Church
of the Immaculate Conception in central Havana, where he prayed for his
fellow dissidents -- whom he called his "jailed brothers" -- and read a
statement stressing the need to "not lose hope" in Cuba's future.
In April, Havana launched its toughest crackdown against dissidents in
years, netting 75 opponents who were given summary trials, convicted and
sentenced to lengthy jail terms.
Subsequently, three people who tried to hijack a Cuban commuter ferry to
get to the United States faced swift summary trials and execution in
Cuba.
The moves brought an outcry from the European Union and the United
States.
Paya dedicated the petition to the jailed dissidents on Friday.
Paya, the Varela Project's lead sponsor and head of the Christian
Liberation Movement outlawed in Cuba, won the European Parliament's
Sakharov Prize in 2002 for his efforts to bring democracy to Cuba and is
a candidate for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize.
Both the EU and United States have said they are reviewing their
relations with Cuba in light of the crackdown.
The United States does not have full diplomatic ties with Cuba and has
had a tough, full economic embargo clamped on Havana for more than four
decades.
European nations that have invested heavily in Cuba's top industry,
tourism, have always tried to keep economic and diplomatic channels as
open as possible, until now.
Thursday, US Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere
Roger Noriega told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Cuba
in Washington that Havana has a biological arms program, an accusation
the United States also made last year.
"We continue ... to believe that Cuba has at least a limited,
developmental, offensive biological weapons research and development
effort and is providing dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states,"
Noriega said.
Meanwhile the wife of jailed Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet asked
for international help in cutting short his 25-year sentence, citing his
solitary confinement in deplorable conditions.
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