By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Jul 16 1998 (IPS)

Four members of the opposition Internal Dissidence Working Group notched up a year in prison Thursday having received neither a court summons, nor notification of the charges against them.

The freedom of this “Group of Four” is an issue of international interest, with requests received for their release from Pope John Paul II and Canada’s Prime Minister Jean Chretien – although there has so far been no repsonse from the Fidel Castro administration.

Martha Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca, Rene Gomez and Felix Bonne were arrested on July 16 last year following the publication, within Cuba and abroad, of a document opposing the ruling Communist Party (PCC).

This pamphlet – “The Nation belongs to Everyone” – appeared in response to the political resolution presented at the fifth communist congress in October, entitled “The Party of unity, democracy and the human rights we defend.”

The subversive text cast doubt on popular support for the PCC report, demanding a multiparty system in place of the current single-party Communist state.

In defence of the administration, Cuban foreign ministry spokesman, Alejandro Gonzalez, has been telling the Havana- accredited foreign press for months that all prisoners on the island have “broken the law” in some way.

In Cuba, there are bans on any type of association or activity which could threaten State security and the role of the Communist party as the main example for society.

Sources within the opposition said charges against the four prisoners could include that of “enemy propaganda,” one of the counterrevolutionary crimes carrying sentences of between one and fifteen years in prison.

However, the special element in the case of the “Group of Four,” they say, is that they have been in custody for a whole year without the General Attorney’w office either presenting charges or taking them to court – not a normal state of events here.

“We would like to call attention to our situation and appeal for a public trial, attended by the foreign press and accredited diplomats if they so desire,” said one of the Four, Wednesday.

Roca, who is also leader of the illegal Cuban Social Democrat Party, called for a “transparent and clean trial,” in a letter sent to the press from the Ariza prison in the province of Cienfuegos, 336 kilometers from Havana.

A communique from the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconcialiation (CCDHRN) complained “the General Attorney’s office has not even established concrete charges for their imprisonment in high security establishments.”

Leader of the opposition group, Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, called on “the highest authorities of the Republic” to investigate the irregularities in the case which he claims violate Cuba’s Penal Procedure Act.

The authorities must “take into account that we are dealing with four intellectuals with no previous criminal record, whose rebellious action was apparently no more than the arguable and worrying crime of expressing an opinion,” said Sanchez.

A partial list of Cuban political or politico-social prisoners, presented by Sanchez on July 7, included 381 cases confirmed by close relatives and another 79 on which no up-to-date information is available.

Sanchez said there is a positive tendency toward a reduction in the number of political prisoners in Cuba, but adding the figure is too high considering the lack of violence in the country.

On Februay 12, the Castro administration responded to a papal request to pardon prisoners by freeing 299 inmates, 224 of them on humanitarian grounds. Those freed included more than 90 members of the opposition.

Official Communist Party daily Granma said at the time some 70 people included on the papal list would not be freed “for reasons of national security, the dangerous nature of the prisoner or the seriousness of the crimes committed.”

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