BY DOUG LORIMER
US President George Bush met with 11 "exiled Cuban activists" (as the US corporate media described them) at the White House on May 20 — the 101st anniversary of the adoption by Cuba of a constitution which guaranteed Washington the right to intervene in Cuba's domestic affairs.
In 1898, the US invaded Cuba, expelling its Spanish colonial rulers and crushing the Cuban independence movement. In 1901, the US Congress adopted the infamous Platt amendment, which required that Cuba recognise the right of the US to intervene in Cuban affairs.
The following year, when Cuba gained formal independence from the US, the Platt amendment was inserted into Cuba's constitution. In addition, Cuba was forced to grant the US a permanent naval base at Guantanamo Bay. (It is today the site of the world's most infamous concentration camp, Camp Xray.)
Among the 11 "exiled Cuban activists" at the ceremony were Eusebio de Jesus Panalver Mazorra and Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez. Panalver was arrested on December 12, 1995, by the US authorities in California while preparing an armed attack on Cuba. He is linked to terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, detained in Panama for a planned attempt to detonate 48 kilograms of explosives at a student meeting to which Cuban President Fidel Castro was invited.
Diaz was involved in a 1999 plot to assassinate Castro at the 7th Ibero-American Summit in Venezuela. He was captured by the US Coastguard off Puerto Rico aboard a yacht en route to Venezuela, carrying two 50-calibre guns with telescopic lenses.
From Green Left Weekly, May 28, 2003.
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