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EN CUBA
Oswaldo Payá
Leader of the Movimiento Cristiano
Liberación (Christian Liberation
Movement) and the architect of a
petition drive called the Varela
Project, named after a 19th century
Catholic priest who sought Cuba's
independence from Spain. Ahead of former
President Jimmy Carter's May 2002 visit
to Cuba, Payá presented the petitions to
the Cuban parliament. The Varela
Project, which united most of the
island's fragmented opposition groups,
calls on the Castro government to hold a
voters' referendum on electoral reforms,
open the economy and expand civil
liberties. Many Cubans heard about Payá
and his initiative for the
first time when Carter referred to it
during a nationally televised speech.
Payá lives in a Havana working-class
neighborhood and is one of the few
dissidents to remain employed
by the Cuban state.
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Vladimiro Roca
A social democrat whose father was one
of Castro's biggest communist
supporters. Roca was released from
prison in May 2002 after serving a
five-year term for inciting to sedition.
Roca was the co-author of a document
calling for a voter boycott and for
foreign investors to stop doing business
with the Castro regime. At the time of
his arrest, Roca had been trying to
organize a social democratic alternative
to the ruling Communist Party under the
banner "The path is through love,
reconciliation and dialogue." Roca, like
many Cuban dissidents, argues that the
U.S. economic embargo is an
ineffective policy that hurts the Cuban
people and fails to undermine the Castro
regime.
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Marta
Beatriz
Roque
Head of the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists
and a hard-line dissident who tolerates no dealings with
the Castro regime. She was released from a second term
in prison in July 22, 2004, on health grounds after
serving 18 months in jail. She was previously jailed for
three years by Castro. Roque continues to press for
economic and democratic reforms. An economist by
profession, she is one of the few opposition figures on
the island to support the U.S. embargo.
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Dr. Oscar Elias
Biscet
Head of the Lawton Human Rights Foundation and
currently serving a 25-year jail term for his
anti-Castro activities. Amnesty International
considers Biscet a prisoner of conscience. In an
interview with NBC News before his imprisonment,
Biscet described himself as a devout Christian
whose political activism started with his
opposition to legal abortions performed free and
on demand.
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Eloy
Gutiérrez
-Menoyo
Leader of Cambio Cubano (Cuban Change) and the strongest
exile voice for a peaceful transition to democracy in
Cuba. He is one of the leading exile figures to accept
an invitation from the Castro government to participate
in a dialogue with Havana. Menoyo, while too moderate
for many in his generation of exiles, is hard to dismiss
-- he not only fought against Batista, he also spent 22
years in Castro's prisons.
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Fuera de
Cuba
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Alfredo
Duran
A Miami attorney who advocates contact between exiles
and the government. Duran spent six months in a Cuban
prison after he was captured in the aftermath of the Bay
of Pigs invasion. He is past president of the Bay of
Pigs Veterans Association but was expelled for his
moderate views in the 1990s, when he rejected the idea
of overthrowing Fidel Castro. “I no longer believed that
Cuban-Americans should kill other Cubans," he has said.
"I believe that we should work towards a transition."
Duran, former chairman of the Florida Democratic Party
-- an anomaly in the Republican-heavy Cuban American
community -- is currently a board member of the moderate
Cuban Committee for Democracy. |
Jose Basulto
 A
veteran of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion
and founder of Brothers to the Rescue, a group
established in 1991 with the mission of rescuing
Cuban rafters lost at sea. By 1994, however,
some of the group’s Cessna planes had violated
Cuban airspace to drop propaganda leaflets over
Havana. On Feb. 24, 1996, the Cuban military
shot down two of the civilian aircraft, killing
four aboard. Basulto, who underwent CIA training
in the early 1960s, escaped. Basulto, 62,
believes the United States should have no
relations with the Castro regime, a position
that strikes a chord among hard-line activists
in the Miami exile community.
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Jorge Santos
Chairman of the Cuban-American National
Foundation, the largest of the Cuban exile
groups and started by his father, the late
Jorge Mas Canosa, in 1981. Considered a
successful businessman, Mas Jr. runs MasTec,
Inc., a telecommunications company that lays
cable, telephone lines and fiber-optic
networks for most of Miami. His performance
in the political arena, however, has fallen
short of his father's charismatic ability to
unite the exile community. After losing the
Elian Gonzalez custody battle, Mas'
foundation endured an internal split last
summer with old-timers leaving over
differences with Mas' leadership style. Even
so, the foundation remains a major influence
on Washington's policy to maintain its
economic embargo on Cuba. Mas represents the
younger generation of Cuban-Americans seen
as more moderate and politically centered
than their parents.
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