Career
In 1997, Bonne, Marta Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca, and René Gómez Manzano founded the Internal Dissidence Working Group. A The Los Angeles Times columnist described Bonne and Roca"s criticism carrying extra weight as "the only known black dissidents in Cuba", stating that "Given Castro"s claim that the revolution has ended racial discrimination, he can ill afford to let well-educated blacks challenge him, even as gently as the four defendants had done."
They were then tried for sedition in March 1999 in a one-day trial closed to foreign press Gomez Manzano was sentenced to four years" imprisonment.
The defendants became known as the "Group of Four".
The United States, European Union, Canada, and the Vatican all called for their release. Amnesty International again declared the four prisoners of conscience, "detained solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association", and called for their immediate release.
Bonne was released early without explanation on 13 May 2000, having served just under three years in prison. In November 2000, the four published another essay, titled "Social Facets", as President Fidel Castro attended a summit in Panama.
The essay stated that Cuban education was designed to indoctrinate children, that many children were malnourished from food shortages, and that foreigners in Cuba were allowed privileges—such as cars, computers, and cell phones—that ordinary Cuban people were not.
In July 2005, Bonne was detained in another crackdown on dissidents, again along with Roque and Manzano. He, Roque, and Manzano feuded with Varela Project organizer Oswaldo Payá over the best organization for Cuba"s dissident movement. Payá accused them of playing a divisive role and possibly collaborating with state security agents, noting that they had been released from jail far faster than Varela Project members.
On 11 March 2010, Bonne pledged to go on a hunger strike "to the death" if hunger-striking dissident journalist Guillermo Fariñas died from his own fast.
