BY DOUG LORIMER
In a new act of provocation aimed at creating a confrontation with Cuba, the US government on May 12 ordered seven diplomats at Cuba's United Nations mission to leave the US within 48 hours. The next day, the US State Department ordered seven Cuban diplomats at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington to leave the US within 10 days.
Two years after the 1959 revolution in Cuba, which overthrew the US-backed military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, Washington broke diplomatic relations with Cuba. Each country maintains diplomatic relations with the other through "interests sections" attached to the Swiss embassies in Washington and Havana.
On May 14, the Cuban foreign ministry issued a statement denouncing the US actions as "a new escalation of US government aggression towards our country and our diplomatic representatives in Washington and New York". The statement argued that the "US government is trying to adversely affect the prestige of Cuban diplomacy, while demonstrating its frustration at the recent defeats it suffered at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva and at the UN Economic and Social Council, when Cuba was newly elected by acclamation as a member of that commission."
On April 29, despite vigorous efforts by US diplomats to have it voted off, Cuba was re-elected to another three-year term on the 54-member UN Human Rights Commission, a body Cuba has served on for the last 15 years. When the vote was taken, the US delegation demonstratively walked out of the meeting.
In mid-April, Washington unsuccessfully tried to push through an amended resolution at the UN commission that voiced "deep concern" about the "recent detention, summary prosecution and harsh sentencing of numerous members of the political opposition".
Instead, a weaker resolution was passed, asking Cuba to allow a UN "monitor" — a French judge — to visit the island and report on human rights conditions. The Cuban government, maintaining a stance it has consistently taken, said it would not allow such a visit by a foreign "monitor".
The US resolution's phrase about the "harsh sentencing of numerous members of the political opposition" in Cuba is a reference to the April 3-7 convictions of opponents of the Cuban Revolution found guilty of collaborating with US diplomatic personnel in Havana, including accepting money from the US government, to undermine the Cuban workers' state.
A day after Cuba was re-elected to the UN commission, the US State Department issued its annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report, in which it accused Havana of sponsoring "terrorism". The only "evidence" cited by the report to back this claim was that Cuba "permitted up to 20 Basque Fatherland and Liberty [ETA] members to reside in Cuba and provided some degree of safe haven and support to members of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) groups".
The members of ETA living in Cuba are not sought by the Spanish government. On the contrary, many of them came to Cuba in 1999 as the result of an agreement with the Spanish government ,which asked Cuba to take them. Spain has not asked Havana to extradite any of the Basques living in Cuba — an indication that Madrid does not regard them as terrorists.
As for Colombian guerrilla groups, head of Colombia's military General Fernando Tapias told the US House of Representatives international relations committee in April 2002 that "there is no information that Cuba is in any way linked to terrorist activities in Colombia today... Indeed, Cuban authorities are buttressing the peace movement."
Even the State Department's report is forced to acknowledge that the Colombian government has publicly sought Cuban mediation in that country's civil war — which would be impossible if Havana did not maintain contacts with all sides in the conflict. However, the report makes this acknowledgement in the most grudging manner possible, declaring: "Bogota was aware of the arrangement and apparently acquiesced; it has publicly indicated that it seeks Cuba's continued mediation with ELN agents in Cuba."
From Green Left Weekly, May 21, 2003.
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