Vanessa Bauza

HAVANA · Like an uneasy hostess, Martha Beatriz Roque bid her fellow dissidents farewell with appeals that they file out of an International Human Rights Day
meeting in an orderly fashion to avoid clashes with Cuba's state security.

About 50 dissidents had gathered in a narrow corridor outside her ground-floor apartment to commemorate the day last Tuesday.

It was the first sizable meeting of a newly formed opposition coalition, and state security agents had visited Roque one day prior to ask that she "maintain discipline,"
she said.

Roque interpreted their request as a tacit "authorization" and the meeting went off without a hitch.

But it was a much different scene at a similar dissident meeting only a few days earlier, on Dec. 6. That evening state security officials prevented a smaller group from
attending their gathering.

Police arrested 17 dissidents after they lay down in the street in protest and shouted, "Long live human rights, freedom for political prisoners!"

Most of the dissidents have been released. But Oscar Elias Biscet, a well-known activist who was freed from jail just seven weeks ago after serving three years,
remained in custody Saturday night with three others.

While dissident leaders declared last Tuesday's International Human Rights Day meeting a victory for the new opposition coalition, the Assembly to Promote Civil
Society, they say Biscet's arrest shows theirs is a movement that seems to take two steps forward and one step back.

Cuba's government considers opposition groups "counterrevolutionaries" and mercenaries in service of Miami's exile community.

Though their activities are generally tolerated, dissidents are treated by varying standards. For most, dissent in Cuba remains an uneasy balancing act where the
government sets the ground rules.

"There are different measuring sticks," said Tania Quintero, an independent journalist. "The repression of the '80s and '90s, they don't do that anymore or it comes at
a high price ... the opinion of the international community."

Dissidents in Cuba's provincial towns are given less leeway than those living in Havana, where opposition groups often meet with visiting American members of
Congress in hotel lobbies, and foreign reporters and diplomats monitor dissidents' activities.

Similarly, some dissidents are allowed to work in government jobs while most are not, relying instead on family remittances.

Some outspoken critics of President Fidel Castro are allowed to travel abroad while others are denied exit visas.

Oswaldo Paya, a prominent dissident who recently won the European Parliament's top human rights award, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, seemed to
have fallen into the latter category until he got word late Friday that the Cuban government had approved his exit visa.

Paya, the lead organizer of a petition drive for widespread government reforms, had all but given up hope of claiming his award at a ceremony in France on Tuesday.

On Friday morning, his front door had been vandalized with anti-Castro stickers and graffiti, calling him a traitor and a spy.

"This is the government's response to winning the Sakharov Prize," he said.

But that night, the French Embassy in Havana called Paya at home to tell him that his travel had been authorized.

The approval followed requests from the European Parliament and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who appealed to Castro and other high Cuban
officials on Paya's behalf.

"I'm convinced such an authorization would contribute positively to improving relations between Cuba and the European Union," Aznar said in a recent letter to
Castro.

Paya's wife, Ofelia Acevedo, said in a telephone interview that she looked forward with some anxiety to Paya's trip: "I'm so happy, but worried to see if this turns
out well."

Vanessa Bauza can be reached at vmbauza1@yahoo.com. Sun-Sentinel wire services contributed to this report.

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