Published: 01/17/92
Section: FRONT
Page: 1A
In a widening effort to squelch alternative voices and choke off political opposition, Cuban state security police detained and questioned three members of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, and the home of a fourth human rights activist was later surrounded by a threatening mob.
Gustavo Arcos -- one of Cuba's original human rights advocates -- his brother Sebastian and Jesus Yanes Pelletier were arrested late Wednesday, shortly after a television program in which the Cuban government tried to show there was a link between them and three Miami men arrested after a failed sabotage mission.
They were all taken to Villa Marista, state security headquarters, but reportedly released Thursday.
The Cuban government has gone out of its way to tie Cuba's struggling human rights movement to the three infiltrators who were arrested shortly after they came ashore near Cardenas Dec. 29.
The infiltrators -- Eduardo Diaz Betancourt, 38, Daniel Santovenia, 36, and Pedro de la Caridad Alvarez Pedroso, 26 -- were sentenced to death on charges of sabotage, terrorism and disseminating enemy propaganda last week, but early Thursday the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina reported that Cuba's Supreme Court had decided to commute Alvarez's death sentence to 30 years in prison.
The high court upheld the death sentences of Diaz and Santovenia, but the final determination of their sentences rests with the Council of State, headed by President Fidel Castro.
Just hours after the Supreme Court decision was announced, a hostile mob, some armed with iron bars, surrounded the home of human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, shouting "worm, worm!"
A woman in the crowd told reporters that the bars were a response to the phrase Vice President Raul Castro used in a speech last week, which -- literally translated -- means "he who kills with iron dies with iron," or "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword."
Though the Arcos brothers and Yanes were later released, their detention seemed to reinforce the Cuban government's commitment to that strategy. Angry crowds also surrounded the Arcos brothers' homes before their detention.
Pablo Reyes Martinez, a Cuban dissident who telephoned Antonio Tang, a human rights advocate in Montreal, said he had visited the home of Gustavo Arcos Thursday afternoon and that the 65-year-old activist had been freed with a warning. A tape of Reyes' comments was passed to human rights activists in Miami. Tang also communicated the news of Yanes' and Sebastian Arcos' release. International human rights monitors said they were disturbed by recent developments.
"The Cubans seem to be doing their best to try to blur the distinction between peaceful advocates of change and those who seek change by violent means, and that's a very important distinction," said Mary Jane Camejo, a human rights monitor for Americas Watch.
During the TV program In Fraganti (Caught in the Act) detailing the trial of the infiltrators, a notebook was entered into evidence that contained the names and addresses of the Arcos brothers and Yanes.
As Diaz read from the notebook, the activists' names and addresses were flashed across the television screen. The infiltrators testified that Felipe Gonzalez, one of the alleged Miami ringleaders of the mission, had said the activists should be contacted "if we ran into trouble."
Ricardo Bofill, the Miami representative of the Arcos brothers' group, watched the prosecutor during excerpts of the trial monitored in Miami, and said he "seemed very harsh, asking about the notebook as if he were trying to involve them (the activists) in this plan."
Trying to tie them together with the infiltrators is "absurd," Bofill said. "We don't have links with these action groups."
The harsh sentences, coupled with the detentions, and the incident at the Sanchez home, have human rights monitors worried that the Cuban government is trying to wipe out Cuba's human rights movement and neutralize dissident groups.
"To pick up Gustavo and Sebastian is an indication of how far the situation in Cuba has evolved because now they are seen as causing problems," Bofill said. "Before, they (Cuban officials) didn't take them seriously, but now I think they are seen as an alternative for an opening in Cuba."
Gustavo Arcos is one of Cuba's best known human rights activists. A veteran of the Moncada Barracks attack -- the event that started the Cuban revolution in 1953 -- Arcos broke with the government in the mid-1960s, and has served two jail terms. Since Bofill left the island in 1988, Arcos has headed the Cuban Committee for Human Rights.
Hours after the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the two death penalties, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker urged the Cuban government to commute the infiltrators' sentences. "They have not accomplished anything in terms of injury, and we have asked that the government of Cuba show mercy in the case."
Meanwhile, there was no word on why the court reduced Alvarez's sentence, but upheld those of the other two.
However, according to trial testimony, Alvarez was a last- minute recruit who was called to join the group only hours before it left Marathon aboard a lobster boat.
While international human rights groups continued their calls for clemency for the two men, Alvarez's mother, Maria Antonia Gonzalez, said in Miami that she had no idea why Cuba had shown leniency for her son, but that she was glad.
"It's better prison than death. It made me happy," she said. "We don't want the others to die either. We're very positive that they will get clemency."
Among the Cuban dissidents arrested in the past few months:
Marco Antonio Abad, filmmaker, member of a group of dissident artists and filmmakers.
Jorge Crespo, member of a group of dissident artists and
filmmakers.
Maria Elena Cruz Varela, poet and leader of Criterio Alternativo, and six other members of her group are all serving jail terms.
Bienvenida Cucalo Santana, head of the Cuban Women's Humanitarian Movement.
Luis Alberto Pita Santos, head of the Association of Defenders of Political Rights.
Jorge Quintana Silva, a student who had been under a form of house arrest for offending Cuban leaders is now serving the remainder of his term in jail.
Yndamiro Restano, journalist and leader of the Harmony Group.
Daniel Aspillaga Lombard, Tomas Aspillaga Lombard, Basilio Alexis Lopez and Rigoberto Martinez Castillo, members of the Cuban Democratic Coalition serving jail terms of up to two years for attempting to call a demonstration in support of the release of political prisoners outside Villa Marista security headquarters.
© 1996 The Miami Herald.