CUBA-U.S.: Tenuous Official Relations Worsen

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Mar 19 2003 (IPS) - Relations between Cuba and the United States are suffering one of the most tension-filled moments of the past two decades, though in academic circles the Iraq crisis is seen as imposing a question mark on the bilateral ties.

– The situation in the Persian Gulf is marking a pause and everything depends on the steps that are followed in the coming weeks," commented a Cuban political researcher who requested anonymity.

He added that there is ôroom to expect" that the high-pressure international context would lead to pragmatic attitudes in both Havana and Washington.

The Cuban government decided Tuesday evening to limit the movement on the island of the staff of the U.S. Interests Section, a Havana-based diplomatic office. Its chief for the last six months, James Cason, is accused of ôconspiratorial activities" and of fomenting ôsubversion" on this socialist-run island.

Simultaneously, the Fidel Castro government announced that ôseveral dozen persons directly linked" to such activities had been arrested and will be tried.

Elizardo Sánchez, president of the opposition Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, publicised a preliminary list at midday Wednesday of 24 people who had been detained in 10 provinces, including the capital.

Sánchez, whose group is not recognised but is tolerated by the government, said in a communiqué that the detainees would ôpresumably" be tried under Law 88, which the island’s dissident movement refers to as the ôbig bite" law.

It would be the first time that this 1999 legislation would be applied. It imposes prison sentences of up to 20 years for anyone found guilty of supplying the U.S. government with information that could be used in its ôeconomic war" or subversion against Cuba.

Cuba’s state-run television broadcast on two consecutive days a news show in which a panel of experts accused Cason of ôunabashed and repeated provocations."

According to the panellists, Cason and other U.S. officials have allegedly provided instruction and materials to the island’s independent press and have attempted to create a domestic opposition front.

ôWe have seen an all-out race towards provocation, which we do not see as fortuitous or improvised. We believe it forms part of an organised plan to heighten tensions in the sphere of work between the interests sections," foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque said Friday.

That same day, 34 independent reporters participated in a workshop on journalistic ethics conducted at Cason’s residence and organised by the dissident Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society and the Federation of Cuban Journalists.

But as of Wednesday morning, only one of the workshop participants was among those detained in the arrest sweep, David Orrio, of the Cooperative of Independent Journalists, told IPS.

Orrio noted that the list of detainees does not include the most prominent of Cuba’s dissidents, such as Oswaldo Payá, promoter of the Varela Project for altering the socialist government system, and Vladimiro Roca, spokesman of the Todos Unidos (All United) coalition.

Nor had Marta Beatriz Roque and five other dissidents who began a hunger strike eight days ago been included in the roundup as of Wednesday. They are fasting to demand the release of Oscar Elías Biscet, who has been in prison since December.

The U.S. State Department has called upon the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which began its annual period of sessions Monday in Geneva, to issue harsh condemnations of the arrests in Cuba.

The Cuban government does not recognise any of the opposition groups in the country and regularly describes their members as ômercenaries", ôagents on the payroll of the (U.S.) empire" and ôcounterrevolutionary traitors".

Cason was the target Mar 6 of Castro’s scorn. In a speech the president called the U.S. diplomat a ôdandy with diplomatic immunity" and the office he directs ôan incubator for counterrevolutionaries."

ôCuba can do just fine without such an office… a command centre for the most blatant subversive actions against our country," charged the 76-year-old Castro.

According to political observers on the island, bilateral tensions are reaching the extremes of those experienced during the terms of U.S. president Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), who promoted an especially aggressive policy against the socialist-run island just across the Florida Strait from U.S. territory.

Following the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in Washington and New York, there has been a renewed ôprogressive escalation" of hostility, and the situation has become extremely complicated, says the expert consulted.

Washington maintains Cuba on its list of nations that support terrorism, and is seeking elements to justify more aggressive policies, running counter to the public opinion in the United States, which prefers rapprochement, said the source.

The expert commented that Castro’s speech was above all a warning that closing the U.S. Interests Section has not been ruled out.

But in diplomatic circles, the feeling is that the closure of that office would not benefit either of the two countries because it would cut off the only official channel of communication they have.

During the government of U.S. president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), the Interests Section offices were opened in Havana and Washington, leading to a considerable advance in bilateral relations, which had been scant and bitter since Castro came to power in the early 1960s.

Diplomatic sources do not rule out the possibility that Havana has hardened its stance to pressure for changes in the conditions of imprisonment of five Cubans found guilty of security violations in the United States.

Havana is carrying out an extensive campaign to establish the innocence of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, whose prison sentences range from 15 years to life.