Cuban exiles who send money to relatives on the island also should demand the relatives ``join the peaceful struggle for change,'' said the Domestic Dissidence Working Group, an ad-hoc panel of leading dissidents.
Although dissidents have held a few small news conferences in the past, group leaders said they were shocked that security agents did not block or disrupt the one Monday and that 16 foreign media representatives attended.
``This may be one of the biggest activities ever staged by dissidents inside the country,'' said a clearly pleased economist Martha Beatriz Roque. ``This has to give some oxygen to the opposition in general.''
The lone incident surrounding the news conference occurred when a messenger delivering an invitation to the newly opened CNN bureau was jumped by two men in civilian clothes who made off with the invitation, said Roque. CNN nevertheless attended the news conference.
Security agents in the past have disrupted dissident attempts to meet with reporters by sometimes arresting the dissidents or making fraudulent phone calls to reporters canceling the meetings or giving wrong addresses.
Foreign journalists in Havana have recently complained about a spate of criticisms, mostly by Cuban exiles, for timid reporting and toeing the Cuban government line in order to avoid being ejected from the island.
Roque said the government must ``open negotiations with the internal and external opposition'' if it really wants to tackle ``a grave general, economic, political, social and moral crisis the country is facing.''
Cubans should boycott the tightly restricted local and national elections scheduled this fall, said dissident labor leader Vladimiro Roca. The opposition will try to send observers to polling places to report on absenteeism, he added.
Joining Roque at the news conference in Vladimiro Roca's home were Felix Antonio Bonne, Rene Gomez Manzano and Jesus Yanes Pelletier, who together represent some eight dissident and human rights groups.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald