The New York Times, October 13, 2002
David Gonzalez

HAVANA, Oct. 12 - For someone the Cuban government disparages as insignificant, Oswaldo Payá has been attracting a great deal of international attention.

Politicians and leaders in the United States and Europe praise him for leading the Varela Project, a petition drive that seeks a referendum on whether there should be greater personal and political freedoms in Cuba. The Czech president, Vaclav Havel, proposed Mr. Payá for the Nobel Peace Prize. The National Democratic Institute in Washington recently bestowed its highest honor on him.

In Cuba, however, Mr. Payá's efforts have earned him obscene phone calls and surveillance. The government has refused to permit the rights referendum, even though the petition drive collected 11,000 signatures last spring, a shade more than required by the Cuban Constitution for ballot measures.

After former President Jimmy Carter spoke about the project on Cuban television in May, the Cuban government held its own referendum, in which 8.2 million people, out of a total population of about 11 million, declared the socialist system "untouchable." Yet the same might be said about Mr. Payá's spirits, which he said were not diminished by the government's electoral show of force.

"This may not have the statistical importance, and it may not be understood well outside of Cuba," Mr. Payá said in an interview this week. "But as a sign it has great value and the government understood that well. The key to the Varela Project is the personal and spiritual liberation of people. No more masks. The regime did not respond. It fled."

Cuban officials have said little here about the project since Mr. Carter's visit first brought it to the attention of the wider Cuban public. In an interview this week with Barbara Walters, President Fidel Castro said the project's supporters "will have their response in due course."

But in recent remarks in Brussels, Deputy Foreign Minister Ángel Dalmau dismissed Mr. Payá as someone who "represents nobody" in Cuba and ridiculed his lionization abroad.

"We are amazed at the fantasy that some people have in Europe," Mr. Dalmau said. "That is to say, to try to convert an act that does not have the least importance for Cuba nor its people into something apparently important."

Nonetheless, Mr. Payá and other political opposition figures continue to collect more signatures on petitions, saying they intend to deliver them to the National Assembly. They have also formed a civic committee to direct the drive, saying they want it to be a nonpartisan project to demand fundamental rights like freedom of expression, the right to own private business, electoral reform and amnesty for political prisoners.

The government has yet to publish the Varela Project's petition, something Mr. Carter requested of Mr. Castro during his speech last spring at the University of Havana. But its supporters have taken to circulating copies of Mr. Carter's speech and the petition to spread their message.

"That is the only way to get it to the people," said Idania García, who belongs to the private Cuban Foundation for Human Rights. "What can happen now? We believe they will not reply to the project, and once again violate the Constitution. They do not hear us. We are not part of that public which has the right to intervene in the affairs of the homeland."

Although human rights advocates were buoyed by the Carter visit, they said that they continue to face difficult times. The president of the human rights foundation, Juan Carlos González Leyva, is in jail and faces a possible six-year sentence for official disrespect and resisting arrest, among other charges, after protesting the arrest of an independent journalist in March. His group had also been active in collecting signatures for the Varela Project petition.

Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, a psychologist in Santa Clara, said this week he expected he might face criminal charges for he endorsing the Varela Project at a local meeting last month where officials discussed scheduled National Assembly elections.

"If this were a real state of rights, these elections would not be considered legal," Mr. Fariñas said. "There are 11,000 Cubans who say they want a referendum, and the government has not responded."

The few reactions Mr. Payá has gotten at home have been anonymous calls in which he has been called a "clown" and "altar boy" as the callers unleash a flood of obscenities. The week he was to have been honored in Washington, an event the government did not allow him to attend, someone defaced his front door with red paint.

Mr. Payá said in the interview that the government's recent referendum, as well as the arrest or harassment of the project's supporters, reflected the need for change in the country.

"Cuba has a great threat of violence, and its future depends on how change is made," he said. "What Fidel Castro proposes are two very clear things: that his government is absolute until he dies and that the group in power with him get richer and prepare to be the new oligarchy. It is urgent for us that the changes come now. The only possible way out of that is with a peaceful civic movement."

Still, he acknowledged that not all foreign visitors had embraced the project's goals. He said one visitor suggested that things were not as bad in Cuba as in other Latin American countries that are ensnared in poverty, corruption and violence.

"They ask if we are ready for change," Mr. Payá said. "What people are never ready for is oppression."