From combined dispatches.
The Washington Times. June 20, 2001
Cuban President Fidel Castro flatly denied yesterday that Havana was
importing arms from China, calling reports of such shipments "lies."
It was the first official Cuban reaction to a report in The Washington
Times last week that China was shipping arms and explosives to Cuba. The report
concluded that the shipments signaled increased military cooperation between the
two communist states.
"For more than 30 years, Cuba has not imported a single weapon
from China," Mr. Castro said in a television appearance broadcast live.
Furthermore, Mr. Castro said, Cuba in fact had bought no arms since the
collapse of the Soviet bloc at the start of the 1990s.
"Since the beginning of the 'special period,´ more than 10
years ago, Cuba has not invested a single cent in arms," he said, using the
official term for the economic crisis Cuba suffered after the collapse of its
ally, the Soviet Union.
The Cuban communist leader said, however, that three Chinese ships did
arrive to unload supplies for Cuba´s military such as textiles, beans and
rice, but also included explosive material to be used in the construction
industry. Mr. Castro provided what sounded like a manifest of the three ships´
cargo.
"There you have the great arms shipment," he said.
Mr. Castro fired a diatribe against the report, calling it a "little
campaign" by a "reactionary organ."
Mr. Castro´s detailing of the arrivals of three Chinese ships and
admission that the second of the three carried explosives aboard confirmed the
essential contours of The Washington Times report, which was based on accounts
by U.S. intelligence officials.
According to the June 12 report, the three military shipments were
traced from China to the Cuban port of Mariel over the past several months. All
the arms were aboard vessels belonging to the state-owned China Ocean Shipping
Co. (Cosco), say U.S. intelligence officials.
The latest shipment took place in December. That arms delivery
coincided with the visit to Cuba in late December by China´s military chief
of staff, Gen. Fu Quanyou. Gen. Fu signed a military cooperation agreement with
Havana aimed at modernizing Cuba´s outdated Russian weapons.
U.S. intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity
said details of the arms shipments are sketchy but all involved a "known
Chinese arms dealer" who arranged the transfers.
One of the cargoes was described as dual-use explosives and detonation
cord. The explosives were said to be "military-grade" material.
On the day of the disclosure, the State Department confirmed that China
had been delivering military equipment to Cuba, but signaled that the weapons
were not "lethal" enough to trigger sanctions against Beijing.
"We are very much concerned with this PLA cooperation and movement
of military equipment into Cuba," said James Kelly, assistant secretary of
state for East Asian affairs.
The next day, China´s government denied selling weapons to Cuba.
Cuban newspapers carried Beijing´s angry denial but withheld an
official Cuban reaction until yesterday.
In Washington, Zhang Yuanyuan, a Chinese Embassy spokesman, said in an
interview at the time that Beijing had not shipped weapons to the communist
island off the U.S. coast.
"China and Cuba have diplomatic relations, and the two countries´
militaries have relations," Mr. Zhang said. "For some years, China has
supplied the Cuban military with logistics items, never arms."
He declined to specify what type of equipment was transferred, but
foreshadowed Mr. Castro´s comments by saying "explosives could be used
for civilian purposes, to clear some mine shaft."
The issue of economic sanctions against China and Cosco arises because
of a 1996 amendment to the 1962 Foreign Assistance Act, which requires that
economic sanctions be imposed on any nation or company that provides lethal
military assistance to a nation designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Cuba is on the State Department´s list of nine nations designated
as supporters of global terrorism.
Mr. Castro, who spoke on state TV´s nightly "round table"
a two-hour program that began during the saga over Cuban shipwreck survivor
Elian Gonzalez and has since been institutionalized as a mouthpiece for official
views took apparent glee in listing precisely what had been in the three
shipments.
The first, he said, did indeed include equipment for Cuba´s
Revolutionary Armed Forces. But it consisted of more than 1 million cubic meters
of fabrics, 5,000 pairs of boots, more than 3 million buttons, nearly 100,000
needles, large quantities of thread and various items of medical equipment all
donated by China.
The second boat brought several tons of materials for use in
explosives for Cuba´s construction ministry in the building of tunnels,
sewage channels and other works, as well as a cargo of beans, Mr. Castro said.
The third of the three boats, all of which came to Cuba last year, was
bringing only foodstuffs rice and beans for the local population.
Mr. Castro said that as well as "industrial quantities" of
munitions, Cuba retained the capacity to lay a network of anti-tank and
anti-infantry mines, which was why Havana had not signed a global anti-mine
treaty.
"What do want? To invade us without any problem, march all over
the country without any problem?" he asked.
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