Imprisoned Political Activist Freed in Cuba

HAVANA —  Vladimiro Roca, a well-known Cuban political prisoner, was freed early Sunday about two months short of completing his five-year sentence.

Back home in Havana, Roca told reporters, “I will continue my political activism. I am not thinking about abandoning the struggle.”

Roca likened the government’s long-term ideological campaign, aimed at engaging citizens in current affairs through rallies and political talk shows, to the “bread and circus” tactics of Roman rulers.

“When there was no bread, they had to give them more circus,” he said.

Roca, 59, had been serving a five-year sedition sentence in Ariza, in the central province of Cienfuegos, that was scheduled to end July 16.

Roca said he suffered no physical torture during his imprisonment but that the cells he was held in “are places for animals and not people.”

The son of the late Communist Party leader Blas Roca, Vladimiro Roca is a former fighter pilot who broke from Cuba’s socialist system a decade ago and began calling for a Western-style democracy.

Roca and three other activists were arrested in July 1997 for publishing a document that criticized Cuba’s Communist Party and Fidel Castro’s government. When they were sentenced in 1999, Roca received the longest sentence.

The other three activists--engineer Felix Bonne Carcasses, attorney Rene Gomez Manzano and economist Marta Beatriz Roque--were released in May 2000 after serving about half their terms.

Roca’s release comes one week before former President Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit.

Some saw the move as a goodwill gesture by Cuba’s Communist government toward Carter, who has emphasized the importance of human rights during his life of public service.

Spain, Canada, the Vatican and others in past years have asked the Cuban government to release Roca.