Freed Cuban Journo Makes Emotional Homecoming To IAPA

By: Mark Fitzgerald After a decade of membership in the Inter American Press Association -- enduring abuse from Cuba's Communist government that included a 20-year jail sentence imposed in 2003 -- independent journalist Ra&3250;l Rivero spoke Monday night for the first time to the free-press group in this unlikely location in America's heartland.

"For the first time, my reports (to IAPA) have the bitter taste of distance from Cuba," Rivero said in a dinner speech to delegates of IAPA's 61st General Assembly.

Rivero said IAPA's support was critical to sustaining the morale of him and the 26 other journalists rounded up in March 2003 and sentenced to long prison terms "just for doing their jobs with faith and with professionalism."

"Keep supporting the work and keep the solidarity with the jailed journalists," Rivero, speaking Spanish, told the IAPA audience.

Rivero said he, like other prisoners, was sustained by "the mere mention of my name" in the numerous alerts and protest letters IAPA sent on his behalf.

"The great tragedy of the prisoner is not the number of years you have in jail, but to be forgotten," he said.

Rivero, who has health problems, was freed last Nov. 30, and in April was permitted with his family to travel abroad. He now lives in Spain. Rivero was scheduled to speak to IAPA on Sunday night, but was held up by U.S. Immigration as he entered the country.

In 1995, Rivero founded the news agency Cuba Press with about a dozen other journalists. It grew to more than 100 journalists, he said. He joined IAPA 10 years ago, and has served as its vice president for Cuba on the organization's freedom of press committee since 1998. He has been a member of its board of directors since 2002.

This was the first time he was able to attend an IAPA convention, San Antonio (Texas) Express-News Executive Editor Robert Rivard noted in his introduction to Rivero.

"He was either in jail, or in the other jail that is the island," said Rivard in Spanish, describing Rivero as "a living symbol of liberty."

Rivero was once a favored journalist with the state media, even serving as Moscow correspondent. He resigned from the state agency in 1991, and in 1993 was a signatory to the famous "Letter of Ten Intellectuals," a petition asking President Fidel Castro to release political dissidents from prison. Of the ten, Rivero was the only one who stayed on the island, Rivard noted.

In his speech, Rivero specifically thanked Roberto Trotti, IAPA?s director of press freedom, and Alberto Ibarguen, the former publisher of The Miami Herald.

In a light moment, Rivero noted that he had been sentenced to 20 years, "more than this regime is likely to survive."