Clarence Page - Chicago Tribune
 
                 I admit it. I've committed the same crime that Raul Rivero has allegedly
                 committed.

                 I have criticized the Cuban government. I have done it in print, too. But hardly
                 anyone in Cuba read it, except perhaps the state police. Political literature that
                 criticizes Castro is technically illegal.

                 Nor was anyone in Cuba legally allowed to read Rivero's critiques of the regime,
                 either. But that did not stop Rivero, with whom I visited in Havana last year, from
                 becoming perhaps the island's most prominent living poet and independent
                 journalist.

                 Now, suddenly, the old muzzle is no longer enough for Fidel. Castro, who is
                 bringing down his hammer heavier against dissenters than anyone in recent
                 years can remember.

                 Since mid-March, Castro's goons have rounded up 78 human rights advocates,
                 independent trade union leaders and independent journalists, including Rivero.
                 All were charged with ambiguous state crimes, punishable by as much as life in
                 prison, for allegedly ''collaborating'' with United States diplomats.

                 What kind of ''collaboration''? The regime has not bothered to be very specific
                 and its so-called ''trials'' have not been open to outside journalists or diplomats.
                 Rivero, 57, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

                 Most of those arrested were associated with the Varela Project, a courageous
                 initiative that captured world attention and former President Jimmy Carter's
                 endorsement during his visit to Cuba last year. It surprised the world by finding
                 more than 30,000 people brave enough to sign a petition calling for free speech,
                 free association, free enterprise and other democratic reforms.

                 Cracking down on a poet and writer like Rivero sends a signal to the island's
                 growing movement of about 30 independent news agencies and other
                 independent journalists that there's a big price to pay for their nonconformity,
                 too.

                 But many experts on Cuba are wondering why Castro is hardening his heart like
                 a biblical Pharoah now. He's spent the past decade trying to put a happy face on
                 his tyranny to attract trade and tourism to replace the old Soviet Union's
                 now-vanished million-dollar-a-day subsidies.

                 Now, while Uncle Sam's eyes are focused on Iraq, would seem to be a good
                 time for Castro to sneak a crackdown past an international backlash. But the
                 backlash has come anyway, from the European Union, the Roman Catholic
                 Church, international human rights organizations and from Capitol Hill, just as
                 efforts to lift trade sanctions were beginning to make some headway.

                 In fact, Rep. Jeff Flake, a conservative Arizona Republican and one of the boldest
                 advocates in the House for lifting sanctions, says he believes Castro's
                 crackdown has come now precisely because Castro does not want sanctions
                 lifted.

                 The last thing Castro wants, Flake told me in a telephone interview, is to have
                 more American capitalism chipping away at the underpinnings of his island's
                 teetering socialist experiment.

                 And I believe that Flake is right. Castro passionately and personally hates
                 capitalism, even the petty enterprise practiced by street vendors. Castro wants
                 nothing more than to see dissenters leave his island.

                 But Rivero and other new dissidents don't want to leave the island. They want to
                 stay. They feel betrayed. They don't want to undo Castro's revolution. They only
                 want it to listen to the people it purports to be saving.

                 They look to us in their hour of need and to the other freedom-loving people on
                 this planet. We must not let them down.

                 CLARENCE PAGE is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His column appears
                 occasionally.