By Jim Loney
MIAMI, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A coalition of Cuban exiles on Wednesday issued a document describing basic terms on which Cuba could make a transition from communist rule to democracy, but a leading exile group declined to sign it.
Twenty-nine exile organizations and more than a dozen dissident groups within Cuba were signatories to the "Agreement for Democracy,'' coalition leaders said at a news conference.
It was released a week before Pope John Paul II's historic first visit to Cuba, a trip many exiles hope will promote democratic change in the Caribbean island.
The paper describes a "new Republic of Cuba'' in which Cubans would elect their government in a secret ballot and freedom of speech and the press would be protected. It calls for amnesty for political prisoners and organization of an impartial judiciary.
"We affirm that the Cuban nation is one, within the national territory and diaspora,'' the document said. "We believe that all Cubans have the right to be equal before the law and the nation, with full dignity that cannot be subject to any discrimination.''
The Cuban American National Foundation, the most prominent Miami exile group and a powerful proponent of the stringent U.S. economic embargo against Cuba, did not sign the pact because it did not specifically exclude Cuban President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul from a transition government.
"We agree with all the elements that have been included,'' CANF president Francisco Hernandez told Reuters. "But we objected to referring to a provisional or transitional government without clearly stating that Fidel or Raul Castro could not be part of it.''
"You cannot construct democracy from the building created by tyrants,'' he said.
CANF this week released its own "transition manifesto'' in which it called for the removal of the Castro brothers as a prerequisite for any transition. It proposed a council be set up to introduce a market economy, dismantle the state security apparatus and ensure a peaceful transition from communism.
The coalition brought together a broad group of Cuban exile organizations which agree on the need for democracy in Cuba but differ on the best methods of dislodging Castro.
The group includes well-known organizations Brothers to the Rescue, a group of exile pilots who fly over the Florida Straits looking for Cuban rafters, and Democracy Movement, which espouses nonviolent civil disobedience and launches flotillas of boats to hold demonstrations in international waters off the Cuban coast.
Hard-line exile organizations including Commandos L and Alpha 66, a paramilitary group, were not signatories. It was not immediately possible to confirm in Cuba whether the dissident groups listed had all signed.
Signatories in Miami said it was the first time such a large group of exiles and dissidents had agreed on principles of democratic change. The document will be presented to European Community leaders and would offer hope to dissidents in Cuba, they said.
"We hope that this sort of document gives them the strength to carry on,'' said U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican and a Cuban-American.
The paper was released a day after a coalition of business, government and religious leaders in Washington called for an end to the U.S. ban on sales of food and medicine to Cuba.
Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican who spoke for the exile coalition, condemned the Washington group's call to ease the embargo. "This was a disgusting way to give capitalism a bad name,'' he said.
Democratic Representative Bob Menendez, who joined the Miami news conference by telephone from New Jersey, said he could not accept commercial ties to Cuba or "blood money as the basis by which U.S. policy should be construed.'' REUTERS
00:25 01-15-98