CUBA: Government Expels U.S. Citizen Accused of Espionage

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Sep 12 1997 (IPS) - Along with the Helms-Burton law, which stiffened the 36-year-old U.S. economic embargo against Cuba, Washington has continued to follow a policy of alternative tactics for promoting political change in the Caribbean island nation, local authorities maintain.

‘Granma’, the publication of the governing Communist Party, wrote Friday that a U.S. citizen who was recently detained and deported had come here on a “mission” entailing requirements characteristic of espionage.

According to the newspaper, David Dorn, who was detained on Aug. 15 and sent back home after the U.S. Interests Section in Havana was informed, came to Cuba as a tourist but with instructions to provide material and financial aid to illegal dissident groups.

The American Federation of Teacher’s head of international relations, Dorn allegedly visited Havana on the request of Frank Calzon, the Cuban-American director of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Freedom House.

Granma published photocopies of a list of instructions Dorn was supposedly given by Calzon, and a hand-written receipt detailing the delivery of 500 dollars in humanitarian aid to a dissident Cuban group.

Dorn was instructed not to identify himself nor reveal his place of lodging, to walk facing the traffic at all times, immediately leave any house where more than three adults were present, and not answer anyone asking for arms, because they could be Cuban security agents.

“Dorn acknowledged his ties to Freedom House and that he was following concrete directions from Calzon,” Granma reported, adding that Dorn met with the U.S. deputy consul in Havana while in detention.

U.S. measures to “promote political change in Cuba,” which arouse suspicion among authorities here more than any economic sanction, are designed to contribute to the fall of communism in the Caribbean island nation through more flexible private contacts.

Included in the 1992 U.S. Cuban Democracy Act – which squeezed off Cuba’s trade with third countries by penalising foreign ships visiting the country and giving the U.S. Treasury the authority to levy civil fines of up to 50,000 dollars for violations of the embargo – the measures were broadened in 1995 by President Bill Clinton.

The package of measures announced by Clinton two years ago expanded possibilities for U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba for cultural, professional, religious or human rights exchanges. The president also created a financial and technological aid fund for Cuban NGOs fostering democracy and respect for human rights as alternatives to the current system of government.

Granma underlined that Clinton’s announcement in 1995 included “a generous allocation of 500,000 dollars in aid for the destruction of the Cuban revolution – precisely through Freedom House.”

The newspaper wrote that besides establishing contact with dissident groups, Dorn was to provide specific information, requirements “characteristic of espionage, and coinciding with interests detected among officials of U.S. special services.” Dorn was supposedly asked for graphic descriptions of the surroundings of important economic objectives in Havana and Santiago de Cuba, the country’s two chief cities, and in Moa, a municipality where nickel is produced, located 770 kms from the capital.

The instructions demonstrate “the coordination between the supposedly independent human rights organisation (Freedom House) and the U.S. intelligence community,” the newspaper underlines.

Behind Freedom House lies a “hidden apparatus of subversion closer to a service of intelligence and ‘dirty war’ than to a humanitarian organisation,” it adds.

Cuban authorities report that in the past two years they have detected “dozens of similar operations” entrusted to “emissaries” of Freedom House. But the foundation usually avoids sending U.S. citizens in order not to implicate Washington in such activities, Granma added.

Government officials say that by using Dorn, Freedom House intended to make relations between Havana and Washington even more strained, and to trigger an international scandal in case he were detained and imprisoned here.

The revelation followed on the heels of an Interior Ministry report of the detention of a Salvadoran citizen who admitted responsibility for a recent wave of bombings against tourist installations in Havana, in which an Italian businessman was killed.

The government accused the Clinton administration of “tolerating” the organisation on its territory of more than 30 terrorist operations against Cuba in the past three years.