|
Yahoo!
May 8, 2002.
Three on Trial for Helping Cubans
Wed May 8, 7:14 AM ET
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) - Three members of a Miami group known for sailing
flotillas toward Cuba went on trial for allegedly entering the communist
island's waters illegally.
Ramon Saul Sanchez, Alberto Perez and Pablo Rodriguez of the Democracy
Movement are charged with breaking a federal law that bars U.S. ships from
getting within 12 miles of Cuba's coastline without a Coast Guard permit.
The group launched a flotilla last July to mark the seventh anniversary of
the death of 41 Cubans who drowned trying to leave the island in 1994.
A Cuban gunboat headed toward the speedboat carrying the three men after
they entered the island's territorial waters, U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Joseph
Sinnett testified Tuesday.
Sanchez has said that the flotilla, which left from Key West, did not breach
Cuban waters. But Democracy Movement spokesman Norman Del Valle said that the
three men intentionally entered Cuban seas.
If convicted, Sanchez, Perez and Rodriguez face up to 10 years in prison and
a $10,000 fine.
Libya lashes out at what it sees as American allegations that it
exchanged biotechnology with Cuba
Wed May 8, 5:54 AM ET
TRIPOLI, Libya - The Libyan government denounced what it said are American
charges that Cuba shared bioweapons technology with the north African country,
saying that such "empty allegations" constitute terrorism.
"This is no more than the usual ways that America uses to wage
campaigns against people, by resorting to threat, terrorism and extortion,"
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassouna al-Shawish said Tuesday. His remarks were
carried by Libya's official newsagency, JANA.
He was responding to comments made by U.S. Undersecretary of State John
Bolton Monday in which he said that Cuba was trying to develop biological
weapons and transferring its technical expertise to countries hostile to the
United States.
Bolton did not name the countries he described as "rogue states,"
but noted that last year Cuban leader Fidel Castro had visited Iran, Syria and
Libya. Cuba, Iran, Syria and Libya all are on the U.S. State Department's
terrorism list and occasionally referred to as "rogue states." A CIA
report released in January said Iran has a biological weapons program and that
Libya and Syria are believed to have one as well.
Bolton, the State Department's top nonproliferation official, said the
transfers involve biotechnology that can have legitimate uses as well. His
remarks to a gathering at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research
group, were considered the first to raise the possibility of Cuban involvement
in weapons of mass destruction.
"Issuing accusations and statements haphazardly is the most dangerous
type of terrorism and aggression," al-Shawish said. Such "clumsy"
and unsubstantiated reports, he said, will cost the United States international
support in its campaign against terrorism.
Libya, a signatory of all nonproliferation treaties, is not seeking weapons
of mass destruction, al-Shawish said. He challenged Bolton to produce evidence
that Libya has any weapons of mass destruction.
Libya has not been recently linked to any acts of terrorism. But it still
has to comply with unfulfilled U.N. Security Council demands stemming from the
1988 Pan Am 103 bombing, which killed 270 people.
A Scottish court upheld the conviction of former Libyan intelligence agent
Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi in the Pan Am bombing. He was sentenced to life in
prison with no possibility of parole for 20 years. A second Libyan, Lamen
Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted by the trial court on Jan. 31, 2001.
Libya has yet to acknowledge responsibility for the bombing and pay
compensation.
str-sd/db
Official: Cubans Hopeful on Carter
Tue May 7, 5:23 Pm Et . By Anita Snow, Associated Press
Writer
HAVANA (AP) - The top U.S. diplomat to Cuba said Tuesday that people she met
during a weeklong tour of the country expressed hope that former President
Carter will persuade the communist leadership to open up the closed society
during his upcoming visit.
"Independent librarians, independent journalists, they all hope that
President Carter will help open up a little more space," Vicky Huddleston,
chief of the U.S. Interests Section, said in an interview.
Carter, who arrives here Sunday for a five-day visit at the invitation of
President Fidel Castro, worked toward normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations
during his 1977-1981 term.
Carter helped establish government interests sections in Havana and
Washington to provide a channel of communications between the two countries,
which have not had full diplomatic relations since 1961.
His administration also eliminated restrictions on American tourist travel
to Cuba and allowed Cuban exiles to visit relatives on the island and send them
money. It also promoted talks between exiles and Cuban officials that resulted
in thousands of political prisoners being released.
During a weeklong tour by car, Huddleston said she met a Baptist minister in
the eastern city of Santiago who cannot get government permission to grow a
vegetable garden to provide food for his elderly parishioners. She also
encountered church groups who cannot get government authorization for small
pharmacies of basic medicines to be sold to needy people in Cuban pesos.
The communist government discouraged both, saying it was the sole supplier
of such goods to its citizenry, Huddleston said.
Huddleston also cited the wife of a blind independent journalist jailed in
the central city of Ciego de Avila and an independent librarian who has
difficulty persuading young people not to be scared to borrow her books.
"These kind of things can be addressed by an opening of Cuban society"
through a "democratic, nonviolent transition," she said.
Huddleston said she passed out small short-wave radios provided by the U.S.
government on her trip. One recipient, a boy on a bicycle, reportedly later had
his radio seized by authorities. Another tearfully accepted the gift, saying
without it she would have nothing to give to her son for his 8th birthday.
The Cuban government recently complained about U.S. distribution of hundreds
of radios, saying they encourage people to listen to the U.S. government's Radio
Marti.
"The Cuban government sells radios here," Huddleston said. "We
are not providing something to the Cuban people that is prohibited."
She estimated more than 1,000 radios had been distributed.
Huddleston said she hopes Carter, long known for his focus on democracy and
human rights, will be impressed by the Varela Project, a signature-gathering
campaign designed to force a referendum on reforms in Cuba's one-party state.
The collection and subsequent verification of more than 10,000 signatures
required by the Cuban constitution to place a referendum before voters "shows
that people are overcoming their fear," Huddleston said.
Still, she said, she worried about a possible crackdown on participants when
activists finally deliver the lists of signatures to the National Assembly later
this year.
Cuban authorities have indicated they don't expect the project to succeed. | 
