POLITICS-CUBA: Castro to Defy Threat of Arrest in US

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Sep 2 2000 (IPS) - Cuban President Fidel Castro says he will fly to New York next week to attend the United Nations Millennium Summit despite pressure from Cuban exiles in the United States to have him arrested there for “crimes against humanity.”

The Cuban Foreign Ministry has requested travel visas from the US government for Castro, Ricardo Alarcón (president of the National Assembly), foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque, and other members of the diplomatic delegation.

For the purpose of the Millennium Summit, to be held Sep 6 – 8, Havana requested authorisation to fly over US territory and to land two I1-62 aircraft at a New York airport.

But this week Washington refused entry to Alarcón, who was to take part in a meeting called by the Inter-Parliamentary Union at UN headquarters.

“Now it all depends on the attitude of the United States government whether or not Alarcón’s situation will be repeated,” said a Foreign Ministry official upon confirming Castro had notified the ministry just hours earlier that he would head the Cuban delegation to the UN summit.

The ministry also announced that on Aug 21, “in a mutual agreement with the US State Department,” a programme of activities and other pertinent details had been drafted by representatives from the Cuban Personal Security Directorate, the US Secret Service and the New York Police.

The announcement is unusual given the strict secrecy that tends to surround Castro’s travel plans. In November 1999, the Cuban president decided not to attend the World Trade Organisation ministerial conference in Seattle because of the possibility that the United States might deny him a visa.

“I did not want to subject myself to that humiliation,” wrote Castro in a letter to US lawmaker Jim McDermott, who had promoted the visit. Castro also said at the time that there was “unquestionably a conspiracy underway (against his US trip) with the support of the State Department.”

Prior to the Seattle conference, Cuban exiles in the US city of Miami demanded Castro’s arrest and trial in the United States for the 1996 shoot-down of two airplanes belonging to the organisation Brothers to the Rescue, an incident that left three people dead. Cuba insists that the aircraft had violated the island’s airspace.

Lincoln Díaz Balart, a Republican Party legislator of Cuban origin, is now using a similar tack in calling for Castro’s arrest, based on the International Convention Against Torture, which the United States ratified on Oct 20, 1994.

Díaz Balart implores President Bill Clinton in a letter to order Janet Reno, the US Attorney General, to take the necessary steps to arrest Castro if he sets foot on US soil.

“I can say here, with complete assurance, that there is no threat or risk (in the United States) that should scare anybody in this country,” responded foreign minister Pérez Roque during a Thursday media conference.

The minister announced that a final decision on Castro’s visit to New York would be made within 72 hours. The last time the Cuban president travelled to New York was in 1995, for the UN’s 50th anniversary celebration.

The Cuban delegation is to give a presentation during the Sep 6 afternoon plenary session and participate the next morning in a round table discussion presided by Poland.

The foreign minister said that in his opinion, the Summit’s agenda cannot ignore the persistence of an unjust and unsustainable international order and of massive poverty worldwide.

“The report to be presented at the conference refers to more than one billion people who suffer from hunger, especially in Africa,” he pointed out.

The more than 150 leaders scheduled to attend the UN assembly are to sign a declaration of their vision for the world in the 21st century. Cuba agrees with the document’s content, even though it does not express all of the Castro government’s positions.

According to Havana, the meeting of world leaders should mark “a moment of impetus” for the UN to promote poor nations’ right to development, as well as the UN’s “decisive role in the preservation of peace and security in the world.”

The Cuban government also wants the UN Summit to create a space for discussing the “necessary and unpostponable” reforms its says the international forum needs.

Pérez Roque chastised the United States because in the middle of that country’s economic boom, it is attempting to reduce its contribution to the UN budget, to which it already owes 1.8 billion dollars.

“Cuba believes a discussion is essential about the need for the United States to pay its (UN) dues on time,” said the minister.

He announced that the Castro delegation would also meet with US personalities of Cuban origin while in New York.

“We have no qualms about such meetings (with Cuban immigrants to the United States) because in the past they have been very useful” in the exchange of information and viewpoints, he said.