Cuba: No reform from within

HAVANA, June 3 (Roberto Santana Rodríguez / www.cubanet.org) - Agents of the political police threatened several government opponents with the refusal to issue exit visas should they persist in gathering signatures for the Varela Project, an initiative that seeks to reform the island's Communist system legally from within.

Pablo García, Eslay Casas, and three others who asked not to be named, said they were called into the Santiago de las Vegas police station, where they were questioned about the movement to which they belong, the Opponents for a New Republic.

The dissidents said the organization to which they belong is a peaceful one, and that all they do is exercise their rights under the UN Declaration of the Rights of Man.

Department of State Security agents, led by captain Adrián, and officers Diorlis, Adolfo, and one other, told the dissidents that they would not countenance public demonstrations of any kind and insisted that the dissidents quit their "counterrevolutionary" activities or else they would never be allowed to leave the country.