Urgent message for Latin American, European and Canadian officials who
             welcomed Pope John Paul II's 1998 visit to Cuba as a sign of a new opening
             on the island: You should read Cuba's new gag law against independent thinkers.
              It's a return to the darkest ages of Soviet communism or European fascism.

             The Law for the Protection of National Independence and the Economy of
             Cuba -- better known as Law No. 88 -- was passed by Cuba's rubber-stamp
             National Assembly last month, but its full text is only now beginning to circulate
             among foreign governments and human rights groups.

             Judging from a copy I received this week, it's not only directed against Cuba's
             courageous independent journalists but could be applied to any Cuban who writes
             a letter abroad complaining about Cuba's problems, or -- God forbid -- suggesting
             that the Maximum Leader may be less than perfect.

             Among its key provisions:

               Article 6: Sets prison terms from three to eight years for those ``who
             accumulate, reproduce or spread material of subversive character from the
             government of the United States of America, its agencies, dependencies,
             representatives, officials, or from any other foreign entity [my italics].''

             Target: any publication sent by foreign pro-democracy groups, which often
             smuggle into the island copies of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights,
             or banned books like George Orwell's Animal Farm and biographies of Martin
             Luther King and Mohandas K. Ghandi.

               Article 7: Sets penalties from two to five years in prison for ``anyone who . . .
             collaborates in any way with foreign radio or television stations, newspapers,
             magazines or other mass media with the purpose of . . . destabilizing the country
             and destroying the socialist state.'' The penalties rise to three to eight years in
             prison if such collaboration ``is carried out for profit.''

             Target: Cuba's independent journalists, who are not allowed to work in
             state-controlled media, and sell their reports to foreign media. Many of them have
             become a more reliable source of news than the Communist Party's daily Granma
             or the government's news agency Prensa Latina.

               Article 9: Sets prison terms of seven to 15 years to ``anyone who . . . carries
             out any action aimed at hindering or hurting economic relations of the Cuban
             state.''

             Target: Could be applied against any Cuban who complains to a foreigner about
             the state of the economy, since such information can lead a potential foreign
             business partner not to invest on the island.

               Article 11: Sets prison terms of three to eight years to ``anyone who . . . directly
             or through third parties, receives, distributes or participates in the distribution of
             financial, material or other resources, from the government of the United States, its
             agencies, dependencies, representatives, officials or private entities [my italics].''

             Target: The paragraph is aimed at prohibiting religious or other nongovernmental
             organizations from sending money, computers or fax machines to independent
             groups or individuals in Cuba.

             Conclusion: While Law 88 is ostensibly aimed at countering the ``U.S. economic
             war on Cuba,'' its real target is not the U.S. government -- which has been trying
             to build bridges to Cuba lately -- but Cuba's independent journalists, independent
             civic groups on the island, and U.S. and European nongovernmental organizations
             trying to help them.

             ``It's lamentable,'' Pierre Shori, Sweden's minister of international cooperation,
             told me in a telephone interview Wednesday. ``This kind of free movement of
             thought should be allowed: It's part of the modern world. No man is an island, and
             neither can be Cuba.''

             You can e-mail Andres Oppenheimer at aoppenheimer
             @herald.com and read his columns on HeraldLink:
             www.herald.com/americas/archive/oppen
 

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