CUBA-US: Trial of U.S. Citizen Heightens Tension

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Nov 7 1997 (IPS) - The Cuban office of the public prosecutor’s request for 20 years in prison for a U.S. citizen accused of planning an attempt on the life of President Fidel Castro has heightened tensions between the Caribbean island nation and the United States.

The U.S. Interests Section in Havana openly criticised Cuba’s judicial system Thursday, adding that it did not have evidence that the defendant had been given sufficient time to prepare his defence.

“The U.S. government has long expressed its serious concern over judicial procedures in Cuba,” said the diplomatic office, maintaining that the subordination of the courts to the governing Communist Party compromised the legal system’s autonomy.

Walter Van der Veer, a former military officer, was arrested in Havana in August 1996 and charged with inciting an armed uprising in the province of Pinar del Rio, 175 kms west of Havana, as well as planning attempts on President Fidel Castro’s life and attacks on State Security headquarters in Havana.

U.S. judge Dominique Salfi, who travelled to Cuba to participate in the trial as an observer, said the sentence the prosecutors were seeking was high.

But local observers say Van der Veer could consider himself fortunate, because in accordance with Cuba’s penal code, individuals found guilty of attacks on state security can even be given the death sentence.

Although Van der Veer has been charged with attempted, not completed, acts, as well as recruiting a Cuban citizen to assist him, the charges were described as “very serious” by Cuban Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez.

The public prosecutor’s office indicated that a bowie knife, U.S. army fatigues and insignias, camouflage paints and a Cuban flag in which the star had been replaced by a cross, which Van der Veer had smuggled into Cuba in boxes of donations for the Catholic Church, had been confiscated.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, Van der Veer had previously visited Cuba in February and March 1996, when he twice tossed anti-government pamphlets in the streets of the capital.

The prosecutors accuse the defendant of belonging, since 1993, to the ‘Cuban Liberation Front’, an armed anti-Castro group based in Miami, which is home to the largest Cuban exile community in the United States.

After the trial, Salfi told the press that Van der Veer had declared himself innocent of all charges, claiming that he had travelled to Cuba as a “religious activist” to deliver medical donations from the La Pequena Flor Catholic church in Miami.

The closed-door trial to which no reporters were allowed access coincided with the official euphoria that followed the UN General Assembly’s approval this week of a resolution condemning the 36- year U.S. embargo against Cuba.

The vote of 143 countries in favour, three against and 17 abstentions was interpreted here as a major Cuban diplomatic victory against the United States, and an important card for Castro to take to this weekend’s seventh Iberian American Summit on Venezuela’s Margarita Island.

The blockade, stiffened by last year’s passage of the Helms- Burton Act, constitutes a focal point of constant tension between the two countries, to which has been added a long list of mutual accusations.

This year Havana filed a complaint with the Convention Prohibiting the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological Weapons, accusing the United States of spraying the ‘Thrips Palmi’ pest in Cuba, which devastated potato crops in several provinces.

In July, Armed Forces Minister Raul Castro alleged that Michael Rannenberger, in charge of Cuban affairs in the U.S. State Department, had promised economic aid and material and logistical support to Cuban opposition groups.

And Cuba’s Interior Ministry accused the United States of allowing a series of bombings this year of tourist installations – the fastest-growing sector of the Cuban economy – to be organised on U.S. territory.

Havana also alleged that the U.S. Congress was secretly preparing legislation to further tighten the blockade.

U.S. President Bill Clinton, meanwhile, started the year with a “transition plan” for Cuba, which provides for funds for a post- Castro government and calls on the Cuban military to participate in the transition process.

The United States has been making efforts to overcome European Union resistance to the Helms-Burton Act, and has revealed its aim of drawing Latin American governments into its policy of isolating Cuba.