SANTA CLARA, Cuba -- The scene: a spotless gas station in the middle of town in the 39th year of Fidel Castro's revolution.

A man wearing a Florida Marlins baseball cap approaches two men as they buy gasoline and chocolate.

``Are you journalists?'' the man asks.

It's about 7 p.m., and throughout the city, 250,000 people stand behind barricades. They await the arrival of revolutionary hero Che Guevara's bones, discovered three months ago in a secret Bolivian grave.

``Yes,'' we reply.

``All this stuff with Che,'' the man says, ``it's just a publicity stunt. It's manufactured, staged. Me, I see a black future for Cuba.''

The man is raising his voice, and anyone in the store can hear him. In Cuba, people are imprisoned for speaking out against the government. We suggest perhaps we should move outside.

Remains unafraid

But the man is unfazed as he sidles up to our car, gassing up about 50 feet from a cluster of police officers providing security for the caravan bringing Che's remains from Havana.

``I am a political opponent of this regime,'' the man announces. The Cuban people, he says, ``are lambs. This is the silence of the lambs. They couldn't brainwash me. Listen, I'll give you my name, my address; I'm not scared.''

He identifies himself as Raymond Martinez. He says he makes his living selling food out of his house, presumably on the black market. He begins to talk about Pope John Paul II, who is scheduled to say Mass in Santa Clara during his visit to Cuba in January.

One of the attendants has been listening to our conversation with growing rage, and he speaks up.

``Hey, are you a politician?'' the attendant says to Martinez. ``Do you know the pope personally? If this really were a tyranny, you'd already be tossed into prison.''

``Well, you'll probably report me,'' Martinez says.

``No, no, you have the freedom to talk here,'' the attendant says.

``But I can't go to the ballot box and vote, can I?''

``Why not? We have elections.''

``They're not really elections. There's no candidate except for Fidel.''

Why not protest?
``You say there are all these people who are not in agreement with the government. But they don't ever do anything. In Chile or Argentina, if people don't like the government, they take a flag and go out in the streets. But I've never seen you in the streets.''

``I'm talking about human rights. Animals don't even know what those are.''

``Are you calling me an animal? There's no tyranny here. The majority of the Cubans love their president. He's the most charismatic figure in the world. There are people who know nothing about Cuba, but everybody knows Fidel Castro. And look what he's done. No other country in Latin America is so developed.''

``Yeah, you're a gas station attendant. You have a little bit of status, so you can say these things. You don't know that Cubans are the least-informed people in the world.''

``I'm very informed.''

Reads the papers

``What do you read? You get everything you need to know from Granma, Trabajadores and Juventud Rebelde?'' Martinez asks, referring to the state-run newspapers.

``Yes, those are enough for me.''

We ask the attendant for his name, and he declines. ``I don't know who you are,'' he says. Another car drives up, and he returns to work. Martinez shakes our hands, asks for us to visit him and walks away. As we prepare to drive off, the attendant runs over and apologizes. He says people like Martinez in Cuba are few. Just today, he says, some people staged a hunger strike.

``We, the people, repudiated them,'' he says.

We drive up the street to the scene of the hunger strike. The house is dark and bolted shut. The parents of one of the protesters greet us timidly. They tell us their son was arrested hours earlier. They don't know where he is.

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald