By Patricia Grogg. Asia Times,
October 19, 2001.
HAVANA - The dismantling of a spy station located just outside the Cuban
capital Havana is to be completed by the end of the year, eliminating the last
vestiges of the close military ties that Cuba had with the former Soviet Union.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin announced the closure of the Lourdes base
on Wednesday. The Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) facility at one time provided 75
percent of Russia's intelligence and for nearly four decades served as a
communications link between Moscow and far-flung regions, and with its merchant
and fishing fleets, say United States sources.
Putin cited financial reasons for closing down the installation, although he
said that the decision did not mean his country plans to cut back on economic
cooperation with Cuba. "We advocate the full lifting of the [US] economic
blockade against Cuba," the Russian president told defense ministry
officials and other ministers gathered at the Kremlin, according to press
reports.
A naval support base in Vietnam is also to be closed in an effort to raise
more money for the military in Russia. The Russian pullout from Cam Ranh Bay
will start on January 1 next year. At the same time, Russia will spend nearly
US$1 billion more this year to purchase new weapons, officials said after what
they described as a stormy meeting of military brass at the Defense Ministry,
chaired by Putin.
The decision is also seen by international political observers as an attempt
to establish closer ties with Washington as it involves erasing a long-standing
Cold War symbol just 140 kilometers from the US coast of Florida. US President
George W Bush welcomed the announcement, saying in a statement issued in
Washington that "this is another indication that the Cold War is over".
Moscow paid Havana $200 million annually in rental fees for the radar
station, enough to purchase and launch 20 military satellites, stated Anatoly
Kvashnin, chief of staff of the Russian armed forces.
The installation at Lourdes, built in 1964, housed approximately 1,500
Russian technicians and soldiers who, in addition to their other missions, were
entrusted with monitoring submarine activity around the Caribbean island.
Maintaining the station's staff cost some $300 million annually, according to
Russia's calculations. Section 106(d) of the Helms/Burton Legislation enacted in
March 1996 withholds US assistance from Russia by an amount equal to the sum of
assistance and credits provided in support of the facility at Lourdes, which
means the closure could cost US taxpayers as Washington could increase its aid
to Moscow.
The Cuban government, meanwhile, claims that Russia did not asked for its
permission to close down the facility. "The agreement about the radar
center in Lourdes is not cancelled until Cuba has given its approval," the
government said in a statement on state television. "Unfortunately, the
president [Vladimir Putin], due to the time difference perhaps, didn't have time
to hear our arguments or concerns about this matter before he made the public
announcement."
Experts familiar with the Lourdes facility have confirmed that the base has
multiple groups of tracking dishes and its own satellite system, with some
groups used to intercept telephone calls, faxes, and computer communications, in
general, and with other groups used to cover targeted telephones and devices.
Experts say that the complex is capable of monitoring a wide array of
commercial and government communications throughout the southeastern US, and
between the US and Europe. Lourdes intercepts transmissions from microwave
towers in the US, communication satellite downlinks, and a wide range of
shortwave and high-frequency radio transmissions. It also serves as a mission
ground station and analytical facility supporting Russian SIGINT satellites.
According to a 1993 statement by Cuba, Russia obtained 75 percent of its
military strategic information from Lourdes.
In 1998, a former senior Russian military intelligence officer, Colonel
Stanislav Lunev, said that thanks largely to the Lourdes facility the Soviet
Union acquired top secret US battle plans, including General Norman
Schwartzkopf's famed Hail Mary flanking maneuver, prior to the launch of the US
ground war in the Persian Gulf. "I had the papers in my hands and we knew
all ... including the surprise attack into southwestern Iraq that encircled the
bulk of Saddam Hussein's troops,"
Lunev told the Miami
Herald.
Putin had stated last December, at the end of a visit to Cuba, that the base
continued to operate successfully and "in full compliance with
international norms". Though it was not part of his official itinerary,
Putin visited the Lourdes complex accompanied by President Fidel Castro and his
brother, Raul Castro, Cuba's vice president and minister of the Cuban
Revolutionary Armed Forces.
The intelligence station had survived the transition in relations between
Moscow and Havana following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but
underwent a change in the ideological rules that had guided the bilateral
agreement up until that year.
The military assistance that the Soviet Union provided Cuba from 1959 to
1990 reached $10 billion, according to official Cuban figures. In 1990, Russia
halted arms shipments to Cuba, and in subsequent years cut off supplies of
replacement parts.
In mid-1993, Russia finalized the withdrawal of the Motorized Infantry
Brigade, a remnant of the 1962 missile crisis that had put the world on the
brink of a nuclear war.
Castro stated last June that the island had not spent "even one cent"
on weapons since the 1990 collapse of the European socialist bloc that triggered
Cuba's current economic crisis. He thus attempted to refute rumors originating
in the US about an alleged military alliance between Cuba and China, which would
reportedly include arms sales and joint intelligence efforts.
The years of military cooperation with the former Soviet Union had provided
the island with "all the firearms [and] industrial quantities of munitions,"
said Castro, to guarantee that any potential invaders would have to pay "an
unpayable price".
Havana still has the capacity to set up a network of anti-tank and
anti-personnel mines in the case of a military attack from the United States,
Castro stated at the time.
©2001 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.
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Cuba-Russia / NY
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