POLITICS: Row Over Money Threatens US-Cuba Phone Links

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Feb 10 1999 (IPS) - A legal battle in a U.S. courtroom over the use of funds belonging to Cuba could again disconnect phone links between millions of people united by family ties but separated by the 40 years conflict between the two countries.

The payments in question have been frozen by an order of U.S. federal judge, James Lawrence King, who in 1997 awarded compensation of 187.6 million dollars to the families of three of the four pilots of the planes shot down by the Cuban Air Force in February 1996.

The families of Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa and Mario de la Pena are attempting to obtain the money from Cuban state funds, frozen as a result of the embargo that Washington has had on Cuba since 1960, and the money owed for telephone services.

Family members of the fourth pilot killed, Pablo Morales, is not part of the lawsuit, because they are not U.S. citizens.

Cuban authorities have announced that telephone services with the United States, which were reestablished in 1992, will be suspended again if U.S. telephone companies do not make due payments the Cuban telecommunications firm ETECSA.

“We demand the fulfillment of the agreements; it is a commercial issue, a question of common sense, perfectly understandable by any company”, said Cuban foreign ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez.

The Ministry of Communications and the official media have maintained silence on the issue which is particularly sensitive for divided families.

“I am old and sick and I cannot travel to Miami. My only consolation are the phone calls from my son from over there”, said Maria Caridad Escobedo, a 75-year-old retired professor whose family has lived in the United States for 20 years.

Studies conducted here put the number of Cubans living in the United States at 1.2 million, 60 percent of whom are in south Florida.

In mid-December, Judge King sent the eight U.S. telephone companies that have agreements with Cuba a demand that they pay outstanding bills to ETECSA until the case is decided.

Paradoxically, the Cuban action has the support of the U.S. government, which is not interested in interrupting telephone communication, which would affect its efforts to promote political change on the island.

In this sense, the U.S Justice Department urged the judge to prevent the execution of the demand, considering it to be illegal and contrary to the interest of the United States.

Unofficial estimates in Havana put the value of Cuba’s share of telephone traffic with the United States at 75 million dollars a year.

About 145 million additional dollars belonging to the Cuban government also remain blocked in U.S. banks on orders of the Treasury Department, in accordance with the embargo against Cuba.

No one can pretend “that we provide them with the service for free, and that a U.S. company be the only beneficiary”, said the president of the Cuban parliament, Ricardo Alarcon.