In Havana, members of a dissident group organize a rally to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Government agents harass and arrest the organizers and convene a gathering of Communist-party faithful at the site. Goons then beat human-rights protesters and foreign reporters arriving for the event, and more dissidents land in jail.

Therein is the difference between a country ruled by law and one run by caudillos. Those here who disagree with the U.S. government may challenge it before an independent judicial system. Those in Cuba who diverge from the party-line are threatened, fired, denied housing, pummeled, and arbitrarily imprisoned.

Dissident Ernesto Colas shouting ``Long live human rights!'' and ``Freedom for the prisoners!'' set off the human-rights-day melee in Havana's Lawton neighborhood. The well-trained crowd pounced and dragged him to a side street closed off by police. CNN cameraman Rudy Marshall was among others attacked, El Nuevo Herald reported.

Rally organizer Oscar Elias Bisset, president of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, never made it -- he had been arrested. Absent as well was Milagros Cruz Cano, a blind activist arrested with Mr. Bisset last month outside the trial of independent journalist Mario Viera. She was being held at a psychiatric hospital, in a ward for violent inmates, and only later released.

Unavailable, too, were Vladimiro Roca Antunez, Martha Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne Carcases, and Rene Gomez Manzano. Their crime was to author The Homeland Belongs to Us All, a call for peaceful transition to democracy. In jail since July 1997 they await trial on charges of ``sedition.''

The true heros of Cuba today are laying the foundation for a future civil society. They bravely challenge an amoral regime with peaceful dissent, well knowing the ugly consequences.