Czech MEP meets dissidents in Cuba

Havana, Feb 27 (CTK) - The atmosphere in Cuba is like a pressure cooker that can explode at any time, Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas told Czech MEP Edvard Kozusnik, who met him briefly after his release from prison last week, Kozusnik said in a report he sent to CTK Sunday.

Last year, Kozusnik successfully nominated Farinas for the Sakharov Human Rights Prize.

The public opinion in Cuba is changing as the public increasingly connects economic problems with the existing regime, Farinas said.

Nowadays people speak about it publicly, which was absolutely unthinkable three years ago, he added.

Kozusnik came to Cuba to support the local opposition in its effort to change the Communist regime.

Earlier this week, Farinas was imprisoned for 36 hours, Cuban dissidents have said.

Another Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya has warned that repressive forces are ready to take any steps in order to keep current Cuban Communist leaders in power.

Paya said Cuban opposition was preparing projects for the transformation of society in the direction of democratic free elections.

Kozusnik said Paya and others had collected the signatures of 40,000 Cubans for the support of the planned changes.

Kozusnik said the campaign was similar to the Czechoslovak Several Sentences petition, launched a few months before the Communist regime's fall in 1989.

Kozusnik gave the dissidents a symbolical chain of keys as a recollection of those that calmly rang the end of the Communist rule.

"I believe that Cubans will soon ring the end of the rule of arrogant despots, dysfunctional economy, demagoguery and hateful propaganda," Kozusnik said.