Dissidents, pro-government hecklers clash in Havana

             By JOHN RICE
             Associated Press

             HAVANA -- Government supporters surrounded dissidents protesting the trial of
             an independent journalist Friday, shouting at the demonstrators in a rare street
             disturbance in the heart of the Cuban capital.

             Police carried away at least five people, apparently all dissidents, during the
             incident in front of the Capitolio, Cuba's former capitol building.

             The 20-minute disturbance was one of the most public outbursts in Havana since a
             clash between thousands of Communist Party militants and protesters near
             Havana's Malecon waterfront in 1994.

             About a dozen dissidents had arrived to support Mario Viera, the 59-year-old
             head of the tiny and unauthorized Cuba Verdad press agency. He was to have
             gone on trial Friday on charges of defaming a government official in an article
             posted on Cubanet, a Miami-based Internet page that mixes dissident and official
             news from Cuba.

             Apparently attracted by the television cameras focused on Viera, supporters
             behind him began loudly chanting the Lord's Prayer. One shouted ``Long Live
             Mario, who defends the liberty of Cubans!''

             That rapidly attracted government supporters, some shaking with apparent rage.

             ``I am a Cuban! I am a revolutionary!'' Marta Ofelia Cuallo Portuondo shouted at
             the dissidents and television crews.

             Other people walked up -- one carrying a Cuban flag -- and began shouting at the
             dissidents. ``Viva Fidel!'' cried one man.

             One man lurched out and slapped at Norberto Miranda, a member of a small
             dissident group of teachers, then chased Miranda down the street.

             Police and dozens of onlookers followed and journalists saw police walking away
             with Miranda, one of them kicking him.

             Taken away in police cars were Dr. Oscar Elias Vicel, president of the Lawton
             Foundation, an apparent dissident group, and a woman carrying a cane for the
             blind, identified by dissidents as Milagros Cruz.

             A few minutes later, two other women were taken away by police. Through the
             windows of the police car, they held up and grabbed their wrists to simulate
             handcuffs. Their identities were not immediately known.

             Viera was scheduled to go on trial at the Havana provincial court, on a side street
             near the Capitolio, accused of slandering Foreign Ministry official Jose Dionisio
             Peraza.

             Origin of the case

             Peraza filed a complaint charging that Viera had defamed him with a June 24
             article, Morality in Underwear, ridiculing his statements before a conference in
             Rome on a proposed international criminal court.

             Viera said outside the courthouse Friday that Peraza had insisted the international
             court be independent, but that Cuban courts ``are neither independent nor
             impartial.'' Cuban officials insist that their courts are both.

             The Foreign Ministry distanced itself from the case Thursday, saying it was a
             private affair between Peraza and Viera.

             Lost job, now risks jail

             Viera's attorney, Jose Angel Izquierdo, said it was not clear if the trial would
             proceed.

             If convicted, Viera said he could receive one year in prison, with an additional six
             months if he refuses to retract his statement.

             Viera said he lost his job as an agronomist in 1988 because of his political beliefs,
             and was twice imprisoned on charges of trying to leave the country illegally without
             a required permit, for one year in 1991 and for two years in 1994.