``My brothers,'' she wrote in a Feb. 7 letter from Cuba's Manto Negro Prison to her fellow dissidents, ``even if we are sent to our deaths, we have already made a mark in life and we will always be a symbol to all of the world of [Castro's] repression despite the laughable defamation we have been subjected to by the regime.''

Marta Beatriz Roque, the jailed dissident economist and member of the acclaimed Group of Four, has been jailed since July 1997 for her clarity. Her crime: understanding the power of numbers.

``Statistics,'' she is fond of saying, ``are gossips.''

Indeed, statistics recognize no ideology, no geopolitical intentions, no agenda. They are pure -- and therefore dangerous. Her findings of corruption in the Cuban government's tourism economy got her on the regime's blacklist nearly a decade ago.

It didn't take much expertise or political interpretation to conclude, as she did, that the dollars and cents of Cuba's tourism industry summed up to a bankrupt revolution.

This week, the Castro government attempted to make Roque just another number, convicting her and her three distinguished colleagues of sedition. Only in Cuba is math called sedition.

As always, the trial was a puppet show, featuring stooge prosecutors and a predictable story line. Even as world opinion weighed against Cuba, the circus went on.

In the midst of this spectacle, the dissidents -- Roque, 53; ex-combat pilot Vladimiro Roca, 56; lawyer Rene Gomez Manzano, 55; and engineer Felix Bonne, 59 -- stood firm, resisting deportation and threats of years in prison.

On threatened deportation, Roque wrote: ``They would have to shackle me or inject me with a sedative against my will. I remain firm in my belief that the homeland belongs to all of us.''

The repudiations of Castro's government thundered one by one, condemning the regime for its disrespect for human rights. In his delusion, Castro defended the repression of free speech as an action against subversives.

Had he been lucid for one instant, he would have noticed the growing star power of his most celebrated opponents and the historic dimensions of their resistence. After all, it is not every day that the government prosecutes someone like Vladimiro Roca, the son of Blas Roca, one of the pillars of the Cuban Communist Party.

In the court of world opinion, it was not the courageous four, but Castro himself, who stood judged for crimes against the Cuban people. And while his performers on the five-member Havana tribunal lip-synched the usual revolutionary lines, Castro could not upstage the dissidents.

The power of their convictions resonated, even though they were tried behind closed doors. Not even a locked courtroom could contain their message of peaceful change and democracy.

Now, as the four face prison terms ranging from 3 1/2 to five years, Castro must face his own sentencing in the eyes of the international community.

Communique after communique, the condemnations continue. Even governments friendly to Havana, as are Spain's and Canada's, have expressed outrage over the dissident convictions.

It may have taken a long while, but, thanks to the courage of people like Roque, international powers have caught on to what is happening inside Cuba. Finally, they have done the math.

E-mail: lbalmaseda@herald.com