BY NANCY SAN MARTIN

  Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque Wednesday defended the government's imprisonment of scores of dissidents as an effort to protect Cuba's
  sovereignty in the face of an aggressive U.S. policy.

  In a news conference of more than three hours in Havana, Pérez Roque said the arrests, summary trials and harsh sentences against 75 dissidents were
  justified because the principal U.S. diplomat in Cuba, James Cason, was leading a plan to undermine Communist control of Cuba by supporting groups
  opposed to Fidel Castro's government.

  ''Our patience ran out with Mr. Cason,'' Pérez Roque said. ``We have been patient, we have been tolerant, but we have been obligated to apply our
  laws.''

  Pérez Roque's detailed presentation on Wednesday was the government's first substantial response to the trials and the subsequent sentences of 6 to 28
  years that have alarmed various nations, human rights groups and press organizations from around the world.

  On Wednesday, human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez, one of the few who remains free, called the arrests ``the most intense wave of repression in the
  history of Cuba. Rarely has Latin America seen so many people accused for crimes of opinion.''

  Pérez Roque denied that the crackdown was timed to coincide with the world's preoccupation with the war on Iraq, or was somehow related to a recent
  string of hijackings carried out over the past three weeks, including two planes that made it to Florida and a ferry boat that was towed back to Cuba.

  All of the government opponents -- including just one woman -- were prosecuted on state security charges in trials that were closed to international
  reporters and foreign diplomats. The foreign minister bristled at the suggestion that they were deliberately kept out.

  ''Who has said that a foreign diplomat has the right to the trial of someone on trial who is not a citizen of their country?'' Pérez Roque declared. ``If they
  need information on the trials, they can come to the foreign ministry.''

  The Cuban government has accused the independent journalists, pro-democracy activists, opposition party leaders and other dissidents of receiving U.S.
  funds and collaborating with American diplomats to undermine the socialist system.

  The repressive action also has spurred efforts to censure Cuba as soon as next week at the annual gathering of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in
  Geneva.

  ''There are questions about the fairness of such expedited proceedings,'' Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights,
  said Wednesday in Geneva. ``Cuba must ensure that the accused benefit from due process, including the right to an adequate defense.''

  In an announcement that appeared in Granma, the Communist Party daily, the government stated that those sentenced would have the right to appeal
  under Cuban law -- an indication that punishments might be lessened.

  The foreign minister repeated the right to appeals Wednesday. He also said that the legal proceedings strictly followed Cuban law, with all defendants
  represented by attorneys. They all heard the charges against them, had a chance to respond and in each case both evidence and witnesses were
  presented in open court, Pérez Roque added.

  As evidence that dissidents were being rewarded financially by the U.S. government, Pérez Roque presented letters and detailed lists of payments, among
  numerous documents, that were linked to U.S. funds. Many of the payments mentioned appeared to come from Miami- or Washington-based groups that
  receive funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

  ''It's no different from what the United States does all over the world,'' said Joe Garcia, executive director of the Miami-based Cuban American National
  Foundation. ``These are public funds that go to nonprofit corporations.''

  The CANF, which has repeatedly been accused by Cuba of trying to subvert its system, does not receive U.S. funds. However, it regularly provides private
  aid to Cuba in a variety of ways -- from supporting soup kitchens to providing materials such as pencils and books. Recently, the group sent money to
  families of dissidents caught in the island-wide dragnet.

  ''Fidel Castro has said he will strangle, that there is no oxygen for these people in Cuba,'' Garcia said. ``What we are giving them is oxygen.''

  During Pérez Roque's presentation, authorities showed various video recordings, including several of state security agents who had posed as dissidents
  and revealed their true identities during last week's trials.

  Independent journalist Néstor Baguer, who revealed last week he was really a government spy known as ''Octavio,'' told a government interviewer in one
  tape that his colleagues in the dissident press received money from groups in the United States linked to the government.

  ''They are not journalists,'' Baguer said of Cuba's independent press. ``They are information terrorists.''

  This report was supplemented with material from The Associated Press.