Visiting Cuban dissident and human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez met recently with Cuban American National Foundation board president Jorge Mas Canosa and other exile leaders, according to Herald sources.
The unpublicized meeting with Mas, the exile community's most visible anti-Castro spokesman, came on Christmas Day at Mas' home and included other foundation directors.
Those directors all denied the meeting, while Sanchez would only say that there had been no ``formal meeting'' with them.
Sanchez is president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation. He recently received a coveted human rights award from the French government and stopped in Miami on his way back to Cuba.
Sanchez, Mas and their organizations have differed in the past as to how to deal with the Castro government. But the recent meeting could be interpreted as an attempt to reconcile those differences and achieve their shared goal of bringing democracy to Cuba.
If that is true, then the meeting could be very costly for Sanchez. The Cuban government is very
aggressive with the foundation, a supporter of projects like the recently passed Helms-Burton Law, which reinforces the embargo against Cuba.
``There's nothing new in this, because every time I go abroad temporarily I meet with representatives of the entire Cuban political spectrum,'' Sanchez said. ``On the other hand, we know that the current Cuban leadership doesn't like the convergence of the democratic opposition.''
Sanchez met Saturday with exile human rights activists, including Ricardo Bofill, president of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights.
They agreed to collaborate in their work with international human rights organizations. They will also work together so that the human rights movement in Cuba achieves the formal status of a nongovernmental organization before the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Sanchez also met with the Party of National Democratic Unity (PUND), which has sponsored military actions against Cuba. Sanchez explained he met with PUND leaders because his organization is defending PUND members captured in Cuba, in particular Humberto Eladio Real Suarez, who is under a sentence of death.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald