Cuban dissidents wrapped up a first ever pro-democracy conference outside Havana late Saturday, defying communist President Fidel Castro with unusual unity and little apparent interference from his government.
The Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society brought 168 delegates from Cuba's 14 provinces who issued a bold final statement describing Castro's government as "Stalinist" and calling for a return to Cuba's "democratic traditions."
Diplomats from the US, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland and the Czech Republic observed the gathering, which kicked off with a message from US President George W. Bush promising that Cuba would "soon be free."
The two-day conference unfolded without incident or police presence, prompting participants to wonder nervously when a government reaction would materialize.
Castro's government did expel a dozen would-be European observers in days leading up to the event, prompting sharp rebukes from foreign ministers of Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic.
In their final statement, dissidents called for the immediate release of political prisoners from Cuban jails, a return to political plurality, abolishment of the death penalty and economic reforms.
The resolution called for Cuba's government to demonstrate its rejection of terrorism by expelling from Cuba "members of the Basque organization ETA" and "any other foreign terrorists who have found haven here."
And it said that the official policy of distributing rice and cookware to Cubans rendered them dependent and impoverished and enabled the government to "manipulate the masses."
In a secret ballot, delegates chose a 36-member board which in turn appointed three executives -- economist Marta Beatriz Roque, lawyer Rene Gomez Manzano and engineer Feliz Bonne.
Roque, 50, the only woman of the 75 dissidents thrown in prison during a crackdown in 2003, was released for health problems last year and immediately set about organizing the gathering.
It was held on land next to Bonne's home in Rio Verde, a semi-rural area just outside Havana.
Blue, white and red Cuban flags flapped in the breeze and several banners were hung reading "The fatherland belongs to everyone," "Let's open the door," and "It's about time for Cuba."
Organizers denied that Washington funded the event, but played a message from Bush to kick it off on Friday in which he promised that Cuba would "soon be free."
"No tyrant can stand forever against the power of liberty because the hope of freedom is found in every heart," Bush said in a recorded message to delegates who erupted in cheers of "Viva Bush!"
"The tide of freedom is spreading across the globe, and it will reach Cuban shores," Bush added in his message, while a group on the street outside the event publicly shouted "Down With Fidel Castro" -- highly unusual in Cuba.
"This is a success of democratic forces," an ecstatic Roque told delegates, who chanted for the release of political prisoners.
Castro last week accused the US of bankrolling the gathering and accused its organizers of being "mercenaries."
The US has sent "millions more to foment destabilization, conspiracy, domestic subversion," Castro said Monday. "Do these mercenaries think we are here sucking our thumbs? That we are idiots?"
US-Cuban relations have been fraught with bitter tensions for the past four decades, including a nuclear near-confrontation in 1962.
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