HAVANA (Reuters) -- One of Cuba's most prominent dissidents criticized
                  Tuesday the U.S. embargo on the communist-ruled island and urged heads
                  of state at next month's Ibero-American summit in Havana to meet with a
                  wide cross-section of the Cuban people.

                  The statements from Oswaldo Paya, who heads the small, moderate
                  Christian Liberation Movement, came as part of a flurry of dissident activity
                  in Cuba ahead of the Nov. 15-16 meeting of leaders from Latin America,
                  Spain and Portugal.

                  In a special "Message to the Summit", Paya urged regional leaders not to
                  allow the event to become a diplomatic set-piece dominated by Cuba's
                  communist leader Fidel Castro.

                  They should, he said, seek meetings with ordinary Cubans, human rights and
                  opposition groups, and religious denominations, as well as attend to the
                  official agenda.

                  "The people are the legitimate owners of this country, although they have
                  their hands tied. All the statesmen and personalities who visit us should
                  realize that. You are welcome - but don't ignore the owner of the house,"
                  wrote Paya.

                  "There is a contradiction that the participants in the Ibero-American Summit
                  must resolve -- the Cuban people are excluded in their own country, the
                  totalitarianism is not left- wing or right-wing, it is not a system chosen by our
                  people, it is the negation of our right to choose a government and a system, a
                  negation of many fundamental rights."

                  In a separate document titled "Lend a Hand to Cuba," Paya criticized the
                  37-year-old economic embargo on the island as an obstacle to reform of
                  Cuba's one-party socialist system, and a cause of suffering to the island's 11
                  million inhabitants.

                  "The U.S. economic embargo does not help towards peaceful transition.
                  Rather it has become a centerpiece of the argument with which to justify
                  (political) immobility," he said.

                  Paya urged Washington to lift "as a first urgent step" the embargo on food
                  and medicine sales, followed by the legal structure supporting the sanctions.

                  "It's not fair that the Cuban people suffer the consequences of isolation. It is
                  up to Cubans to conquer their rights and achieve democratic changes," he
                  said.

                  Paya's group, like most opposition groups in Cuba, is calling for dialogue
                  with the Castro government to plan economic and political reforms for the
                  future.

                  Havana views his and other opposition groups, however, as insignificant
                  "counter-revolutionaries" who lack popular support, are mercenaries and
                  puppets of hostile U.S. policy to Cuba, and break local laws by their
                  anti-government activities.

                  The government has been responding to a recent rise in dissident activity,
                  ahead of the summit, with a string of temporary arrests and
                  house-confinements.

                     Copyright 1999 Reuters.