Kate Snow: Carter hears Castro critics

CNN's Kate Snow

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Cuban leader Fidel Castro has told former U.S. President Jimmy Carter he can go where he wants and talk to whomever he wants during his five-day visit, and Carter appears to be taking him up on the offer by meeting with dissidents.

CNN Correspondent Kate Snow, who is traveling with Carter, spoke today with CNN's Daryn Kagan about his historic visit, along with recent U.S. accusations that Cuba has tried to make biological weapons.

KAGAN: Kate, those are some pretty serious charges by the Bush administration.

SNOW: Yes, they are, and they're being taken very seriously here. In fact, President Castro delivered a speech the other night in which he vehemently denied those charges. He called them "lies of Olympic proportion."

He said President Carter, yesterday when he arrived, can go wherever he wants and meet with anyone he wants. And along those lines, they were just a little while ago arriving at this biotechnology center and a center for genetic engineering.

President Carter was to be taken around with his entourage and with Fidel Castro. Taken around this center and meeting with scientists who work there.

Now Castro has said he can talk to anyone he wants, but we probably should point out that no one on Carter's team here is really a trained biologist or scientist. Many of them are political scientists, but they are not trained in genetic engineering or biotechnology. But they are getting that tour.

Earlier today, President Carter took another opportunity to meet with two political dissidents who live here on the island. Now this was not a pre-scheduled meeting.

We understand that one of them got the call around midnight last night. The two men are very well known outside of Cuba for their work as political dissidents.

One is the head of a human rights organization here that's fairly well known outside of Cuba. And the other is the head of something called Proyecto Varela, or the Varela Project. That's a project that was organized to gather signatures on a petition. They turned that petition in on Friday to the General Assembly of the country.

The petition has 11,000 signatures of Cubans, which is something that was dangerous just to gather. They said at times they were stopped from gathering signatures.

But they did hand in that petition that calls for a referendum on human rights -- essentially a referendum on the Castro regime and the government here, which would, of course, be a remarkable step if that were allowed.