By Karen DeYoung and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writers

The Cuban government has released a 70-year-old Chicago man imprisoned for 20 days on charges of "rebellion" for
distributing books and money to dissidents on the island.

Douglas Schimmel, who arrived in Cuba early last month, boarded a flight Thursday for Jamaica after his release from Villa
Marista prison outside Havana. He had been detained Aug. 11 by three uniformed Cuban immigration officials after he gave
money to dissidents and distributed children's books he said were sent by a Washington-based exile group.

The retired corporate human resources specialist, who suffers from diabetes, said he was taken to the prison's hospital ward,
where he was questioned daily. He said he was not allowed to call his wife during his detention but was otherwise treated well.

"I allowed them to question me, and I agreed to make statements," Schimmel said yesterday in a telephone interview. "I felt I
hadn't done anything wrong. In retrospect, meeting with that number and level of dissidents, and taking videos and photos, was
certainly provocative in terms of their paranoia."

A self-described "progressive," Schimmel is a member of Amnesty International and served as an election observer in
Nicaragua. He said he opposes the four-decade-old U.S. embargo against Cuba, a position that puts him at odds with most
Cuban exile groups.

Schimmel said Cuban officials objected to his meetings with dissidents including Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Cuban Human
Rights and National Reconciliation Commission, and Marta Beatriz Roque, an economist who was imprisoned for calling for
political reform. She was recently released after almost three years.

"I ended up talking to about a dozen dissidents," said Schimmel, who had his picture taken with each and videotaped them
talking. "In each case, I would give them just a token amount of money. They gave me their time and their trust. I know they
don't have regular employment."

Schimmel said that before going to Cuba he met with Frank Calzon, director of the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba.
The nonprofit organization is a staunch critic of the Cuban government and receives more than $500,000--about half of its
operating budget--from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The agency prohibits groups from distributing grant money to dissidents. But Schimmel said that during their meeting in
Washington Calzon asked him to distribute $1,000 to dissidents.

"I said, 'No, if I give money to somebody, it will be my money,' " Schimmel said.

He said Calzon gave him eight children's books to give to one of Cuba's independent libraries, and the names of several
dissidents. Schimmel also brought baseballs for the children of dissidents and ibuprofen for a dissident with arthritis whom he
met during his first trip to Cuba in 1998.

Calzon said he did not ask Schimmel to take money or anything else to Cuba. He said Schimmel was one of many people who
visit his nonprofit group before leaving for Cuba.

"We did not pay any of his expenses, we did not give him any names, we did not ask him to carry anything," Calzon said. "I
was very discouraged to hear he was detained. I can't understand how the Cuban government could detain a U.S. citizen for
distributing children's books."