HAVANA - A prominent Cuban dissident has pulled back from a threat to launch a hunger strike to pressure the government to free the last 13 political prisoners jailed in a 2003 crackdown, saying Monday that he was heeding a call for restraint from the men and their wives.
Guillermo Farinas said he was postponing the hunger strike, but stood ready to launch one if he is persuaded that authorities will not release the prisoners. He said he was writing a letter to Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega — who negotiated the releases with Cuban President Raul Castro — to see what had gone wrong.
Farinas won Europe's Sakharov human rights prize in October after staging a 134-day hunger strike in support of the prisoners. He had vowed to stop eating again if the remaining dissidents were not in their homes by Monday — one day after a deadline for their release.
Even as he withdrew the threat, Farinas said he was pessimistic that the government would make good on its promise to the church.
"This government has demonstrated that it cannot keep its word," he told The Associated Press by phone from his home in the central city of Villa Clara.
In their July 7 meeting, Castro and Ortega agreed on a timetable for the liberation of 52 prisoners of conscience held since a 2003 sweep against peaceful activists, social commentators and opposition leaders. The church announced that all of them would be out of jail within four months, a period that ended Sunday.
At first, the releases came quickly. The government freed 39 of the men — as well as 14 other prisoners arrested separately for violent, but politically motivated, crimes. All were sent into exile in Spain along with their families, though the agreement with the church made no mention of exile being a requirement for release.
But progress has stalled recently.
The remaining 13 prisoners have refused to leave the island, a direct challenge to the government. Some say they will continue to press for democratic political change the moment they leave jail.
As the deadline approached, wives and mothers of the island's most prominent political prisoners marched through the streets of the capital Sunday demanding the government honor the deal or face protests and international condemnation.
A prominent church official expressed surprise at the lack of progress.
"It is not what we thought would happen," the Rev. Jose Felix Perez, who coordinates Cuba's Catholic Bishops Conference, said Sunday as it became increasingly clear no releases were imminent. He commented after celebrating Mass for the Damas de Blanco, or Ladies in White, a dissident group made up of the wives and mothers of the 2003 prisoners.
Cuban officials have declined to comment on the deadline.
Cuba considers all its dissidents to be common criminals and says they receive money from the U.S. to bring down the island's communist system.
As for Farinas, officials say his legal problems include violent behavior toward a co-worker. They also note he has lived through some two dozen hunger strikes only because of the medical attention given to him by government doctors.
