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CNN Sunday Morning

Grass Roots Effort to Bring Democracy to Cuba

Aired May 12, 2002 - 09:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Within Cuba there is a grass roots effort to bring the option of democracy to the people of Cuba. Lucia Newman reports from Havana on the organizers and their challenge to Cuba's communist government.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVANNA BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): They prayed in a circle, asking God for his blessing and safe passage to their destination. Then, these nervous dissidents got in their car, to take these boxes to the national assembly. Inside the boxes, an unprecedented initiative to legally introduce sweeping economic and political reforms in Cuba.

The boxes contain more than 11,000 signatures from Cuban citizens gathered all over the country in the last year. More than enough, according to the Constitution, to petition for legislation to allow a referendum to ask Cubans five questions.

Whether they want freedom of speech, of assembly, the right to develop and own their own businesses, freedom for political prisoners, and, free and democratic elections.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

NEWMAN: To the surprise and joy of many of the organizers, the pro-Communist National Assembly receives the landmark petition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This legal, civic action carries the hope, the strength and the love of millions of Cubans, in and out of Cuba, who are waiting to see what will happen. This opens a new page for Cuba, for our nations, and for reconciliation.

NEWMAN: Oswaldo Paya, a long time dissident who heads the illegal but tolerated Christian Liberation Movement, is the organizer of the so-called Varela Project, named after Felix Varela, a Cuban Catholic priest who pushed for Cuba's independence from Spain. Paya says collecting the signatures was a monumental task because of the constant harassment and threats by the Secret Police, whom he says confiscated thousands of signatures in a bid to sabotage the initiative.

OHSADO PAYA, CHRISTIAN LIBERATION MOVMENT (through translator): We now ask the president of the National Assembly to make the Varela Project public because the Constitution says citizens have the right to express their opinions about laws.

NEWMAN: Paya may be asking for too much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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