By ANITA SNOW
Associated Press

HAVANA -- Cuba pressed forward with its harshest crackdown on dissent in years, holding the first trials Thursday for dissidents rounded up across the island
and reportedly seeking life sentences for at least 12 of them.

At least 80 dissidents have been arrested since March 18, accused of working with U.S. diplomats to subvert Fidel Castro's government and of being mercenaries
in the pay of Washington.

Rising tensions with the United States have coincided with a string of hijackings by Cubans trying to leave the communist island. On Wednesday, gunmen forced a
Cuban ferry to head toward Florida; the boat returned to Cuba on Thursday morning. Two airliners recently were hijacked to Key West, Fla., one on March 19
and a second on Tuesday.

As international criticism of the crackdown increased, the wives of several dissidents complained Wednesday that their husbands were unable to consult with
attorneys and had not even seen the prosecution's written case against them.

``I feel so defenseless!'' said Elsa Pollan, whose husband, Hector Fernando Maseda was going on trial Thursday. ``Where can I find someone to defend my
husband?''

Prosecutors are seeking life sentences for 12, including opposition political leaders Osvaldo Alfonso Valdes and Hector Palacios, who were being tried together
with Maseda and three others, said veteran activist Elizardo Sanchez.

An updated three-page list compiled by Sanchez's Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation and released early Thursday increased the
number of confirmed defendants from 78 to 80. The list showed the sentences sought for each, including 12 life sentences. Several Cuban exile groups have
distributed slightly longer lists.

All agree, however, that prosecutors are seeking life behind bars for dissident economist Marta Beatriz Roque, who was being tried Thursday with several others at
a different Havana courthouse.

Roque was one of four leaders of a now defunct opposition umbrella group known as Concilio Cubano. They were sentenced to 3ý to 5 years following a
closed-door trial in 1999 that was widely condemned abroad.

The four were convicted of incitement to sedition for written documents distributed to the international media that criticized a major Communist Party document and
called on foreign companies not to invest in the Caribbean island. The last of the group, Vladimiro Roca, was released last May. Roque served about two years.

Trials also were beginning Thursday for dissidents from other parts of the country, ranging from the westernmost province of Pinar del Rio to Santiago in the far
east.

``This is not a trial,'' said Maria de los Angeles Menendez, a supporter of the dissidents standing outside one of the three Havana courthouses where hearings were
held Thursday. ``They are going to put on a show. The sentences are already decided.''

A trial was scheduled to begin Friday in Havana for independent journalist Ricardo Gonzalez, who recently launched the first general interest magazine of its kind,
and Raul Rivero, the nation's best-known journalist working outside Cuba's state-controlled media and a delegate to the Inter-American Press Association.

According to Sanchez's lists, prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Gonzalez and 20 years for Rivero.

The Cuban government has provided no information about the trials. In Washington, State Department officials said Cuban authorities allowed European diplomats
to attend one of the trials but excluded Americans.

A complaint was lodged with the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, the officials said. Shortly thereafter, the Cubans expelled the Europeans while the ban on
Americans remained in place, the officials said.

Authorities here have accused those arrested of being traitors and mercenaries for the U.S. government.

Cuban Parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon said Monday that authorities had sufficient evidence to try the dissidents, adding that most nations had laws ``to defend
their sovereignty.''

The crackdown began when Cuban officials criticized the head of the American mission in Havana, James Cason, for his active support of the island's opposition.

Accusations that the detainees engaged in treason and are mercenaries ``only show the repressive nature of the Castro regime and its fear of any sign of opposition
to its ironclad rule,'' Roberto Zimmerman, spokesman for the U.S. State Department's Latin America bureau, said in Washington on Wednesday.

The Cubans ``are being tried for exercising their rights of freedom of expression and association,'' said Zimmerman.

The roundup followed several years of relative government tolerance for dissidents. During that time, the opposition grew stronger, more organized and more
daring.

Those arrested included independent journalists, directors of non-governmental libraries, members of opposition political parties and volunteers for the Varela
Project, a pro-democracy petition drive.

Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel