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Raul Rivero was among Caribbean journalists recognised by the ACM
during this year's observance of HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Cuba's communist regime on Tuesday set free two jailed dissidents including poet and journalist Raul Rivero, one of the most prominent critics of President Fidel Castro. The move follows the release of three dissidents on Monday, all of whom were among 75 dissidents jailed in March and April for between seven and 28 years in a crackdown by the Castro regime. Rivero, 59, urged diplomatic engagement of Castro's isolated regime. "I would advise dialogue. I have always believed in dialogue. It seems to me, as a citizen, that dialogues are better than pressure," Rivero, who had been serving a 20-year jail term, told journalists in his modest Havana flat. Rivero was released along with Osvaldo Alfonso Valdes, 40, who headed the Liberal Democratic Party when he was arrested. On Monday the Cuban regime released Oscar Espinosa Chepe, 64, an
economics writer sentenced to 20 years; Marcelo Lopez, 39, a member
of the outlawed Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National The dissidents were freed following a meeting Thursday between Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Spain's ambassador to Cuba, Carlos Alonso Zaldivar. The meeting marked the first official contact between Cuba and the European Union since June 2003, when EU officials imposed sanctions protesting the crackdown and the executions of three Cubans convicted of trying to hijack a ferry to the United States. Rivero, who appeared fit though he suffers from several illnesses,
said he hoped he would be able to "I have never wanted to leave here," he told reporters.
"I am thinking about looking for a place to He told reporters he was a free man "without rage, with a
position that is constructive rather than "I have to rethink all of that. I never wanted to be in any
party (but) I feel a bit like I should work on And he rejected the Cuban government's charge that he is a "mercenary" in the pay of the United States. "I can respect and admire the United States as a country, as a nation, a people ... but I never am going to want for Cuba anything but a government that is Cuban and authentic," he said. Rivero, who in 2003 was awarded a UNESCO freedom of speech award for his activism, said his and the other three releases were not the fruit of international pressure but rather "a private government initiative -- a gesture." Rivero was transferred to a prison hospital in Havana from his
prison in Canaletas, 280 miles east of the Considered one of the best poets of his generation in Cuba, Rivero
in recent years turned to journalism to spotlight the lack of civil
rights on the island. Many of his articles were published in the
southern US In 1995, he founded the independent news agency Cuba Press, harshly criticizing Castro's government. He had become disillusioned with the direction taken by the revolution, which he had defended for decades in poems and news stories. After the government crackdown, governments and rights organizations prodded Castro to free the dissidents. Rivero's wife Blanca Reyes struggled during his 20-month incarceration
to keep him in the public eye, In Brussels, the European Union on Tuesday welcomed the release of three dissidents prior to Rivero, but said it wanted more. "We interpret this release as a unilateral move on Cuba's
part that we welcome," said Amadeu Altafaj, "This is a more constructive approach," he said. But
he added: "We are awaiting new releases ... we are |