HAVANA BUREAU

HAVANA · Under the shade of old banyan trees, in an upscale Havana neighborhood of diplomatic compounds, neglected mansions and
wide avenues, the wives of Cuba's dissidents gather every Sunday for what is both an act of spiritual solace and political defiance: They
pray.

Dressed in white with black sashes around their necks, about 20 women have started coming to the church of St. Rita, the patron saint of
desperate, seemingly impossible causes, even though in some cases state security agents have told them not to.

But the wives say they have little to lose.

Their husbands have been labeled mercenaries and traitors. Convicted of conspiring with U.S. diplomats to topple Cuba's government, they
face up to 28 years in prisons across the island. With no word yet on legal appeals filed at the beginning of April, the Sunday Masses have
become a way for the wives to stay in touch and focus attention on their husbands' cases.

"Within Cuba this is one of the strongest statements we can make," said Yolanda Huerga Cedeño, whose husband, Manual Vazquez Portal,
an independent journalist, was sentenced to 18 years in a prison 500 miles east of Havana. "I feel close to him, like I am supporting him."

Before her husband was sentenced to 13 years in prison, Dolia Leal Francisco had little contact with the other wives of Cuba's dissidents.
Today, they are like a surrogate family to her, a sort of sisterhood bound by shared summary trials.

"I live alone, I have no children, the neighbors have turned their backs on me," said Leal Francisco, whose husband, Nelson Aguiar
Ramirez, headed one of Cuba's small, illegal political parties, the Cuban Orthodox Party. "These women let me use their phones, we speak
openly. I don't feel repression with them."

Leal Francisco joined the group of wives attending Mass at the Church of St. Rita several weeks ago. After the service she and the others
would walk silently up and down a few blocks in front of the church on an elegant avenue that runs through the neighborhood. That, they
say, especially irked the government.

Leal Francisco said state security agents warned her to attend church in her own neighborhood rather than the Church of St. Rita.

"They came to my house and told me I should not come to church or I wouldn't see my husband again," Leal Francisco said. "I told them it's a peaceful Mass, we
are praying for our husbands, and I will continue going."

Fearful of a confrontation with state security, the wives have stopped walking down the popular avenue. But they say they will continue attending church services.

"Here we find a little spiritual healing; no one can take this away," said Soledad Rivas Verdecia, 54, during an impromptu news conference in front of the church
last Sunday. "We are not doing anything wrong."

Her husband, Roberto de Miranda, an organizer of the Varela Project petition drive for government reforms, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the province of
Matanzas on Cuba's north coast.

At the church, the Rev. José Pérez Riera remained neutral when asked about the wives' attendance, saying politics comes second to the spiritual message of the
church.

"The presence of these women and those [security agents] who watch them shouldn't alter the religious nature of the mass, which is open to all," Pérez Riera said.

Blanca Reyes, the wife of Raul Rivero, Cuba's most prominent independent journalist, has emerged as one of the leaders of the group of wives. Together they've
written letters to Pope John Paul II, international journalism societies, European Union leaders, the king and queen of Spain and Fidel Castro himself asking for
clemency for their husbands.

She says she'll talk to anyone who can help keep her husband's name in the news and his story alive.

"All I do is speak, until the day Raul is free," Reyes said. "Then, I will leave the stage."

Like several others, Reyes last week made her first long trek to visit Rivero at a prison in Ciego de Avila, Cuba's agricultural flatland 270 miles from Havana.
Prisoners depend on food, soap, even toilet paper brought by their wives and relatives. Reyes said she brought food for Rivero's soul -- pens, paper and poetry
books as well as practical necessities such as bedsheets, mosquito netting, roach spray and lice shampoo.

"In one way or another we [the wives] also end up serving these sentences," Reyes said of the seven-hour train trip to see her husband.

Vanessa Bauzá can be reached at vmbauza1@yahoo.com

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