HAVANA -- Cuba's small and fragmented dissident movement is planning a public forum to discuss the nation's future amid signs of some change in the three months since Pope John Paul II's visit.

There has been no attempt to unite Cuba's dissidents since 1996, when a planned meeting of some dissidents in a broad-based movement known as Concilio Cubano was canceled after Cuban MiG fighter jets shot down two small aircraft piloted by Cuban exiles from Miami.

Cuban authorities have never allowed the opposition to form a federation that would give it a more significant role in determining the island's destiny.

After a release of prisoners in February at the Pope's request, Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina warned that the freeing of the inmates should not encourage Cuba's domestic dissidents.

The 1996 meeting was planned to bring together about 100 opposition groups. This time, the Cuban Democratic Socialist Current, which has no legal status, is organizing what it calls an Open Forum.

The meeting, set for late April or early May, is not designed to create confrontation with President Fidel Castro's nearly 40-year-old government, said Manuel Cuesta, one of the organizers.

Instead, Cuesta said, the talk will focus on ``possible definitions in the future democratization of Cuban society.''

Cuba has released nearly 300 prisoners since the pope's visit, including about 70 dissidents.

``Clearly, dissidents were energized after the Pope's visit but maybe in a direction that is more appropriate for our times, which is one of shifting, of reconciliation, but not of disruptive change,'' Cuesta said.

At the same time that the open forum is being organized, the Christian Liberation Movement began work last month on an initiative to demand a referendum.

The movement's goal is to get 10,000 signatures on a petition demanding a vote on political change. The petition would be presented to the National Assembly of People's Power.

Oswaldo Paya, a leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, said the petition is being passed around informally and ``could count on the support of various dissident groups'' but acknowledged that it would be difficult to collect the signatures.

To avoid a direct clash with the government, Paya said his group was seeking to force Castro's government to live up to the current constitution while amending or creating laws permitting freedom of expression, free association, changes in electoral law and general elections.