Protest in Cuba triggers scuffle

The Castro supporters forced the dissidents to disperse

Some 200 pro-government supporters have confronted a small group of anti-government protesters in Cuba's capital Havana.

The protesters were marking the deaths in 1994 of some 40 people who drowned as they tried to flee to the US.

Witnesses said members of Fidel Castro's workers' brigades confronted the protesters, but no-one was injured. In March pro-government female supporters confronted a group known as the Women in White.

They were protesting against the imprisonment of their dissident husbands.

On Wednesday, the small group of demonstrators marched to Havana's Malecon sea wall with posters of the people, said to have included some children, who drowned as they tried to reach the US by sea.

The protesters threw white flowers into the sea and chanted "Justice! Liberty!", but were quickly surrounded by supporters of Fidel Castro's government.

The Castro supporters shoved them, shouting "Fidel, Fidel, this street belongs to Fidel", and forced the dissidents to disperse.