By Barry Schweid, Associated Press, 8/30/2000 01:56. The Boston Globe
WASHINGTON (AP) The president of Cuba's National Assembly says the Clinton administration, by denying him a visa to attend an international conference in New York, has shown contempt for him and the gathering of parliamentarians he was to join.
The United States also is violating its obligations to the United Nations and to the Inter-Parliamentary Union by keeping him from attending a four-day meeting beginning today of the presiding officers of the group, the Cuban legislator, Ricardo Alarcon, said.
Saturday, anticipating rejection of his visa application, Alarcon wrote Anders Johnsson, the Inter-Parliamentary Union's secretary-general, to request a response to the U.S. action.
It is impossible, the Cuban legislator said, ''to ignore the contempt and lack of respect for our organization.''
Two deputies in the Cuban assembly will be permitted to attend, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
More than 140 countries are expected to send delegations, including many legislative leaders.
Alarcon's visa was rejected under the provisions of a 1985 presidential proclamation that bars entry to the United States if the visit is considered contrary to U.S. interests, said two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Alarcon's personal assistant, Alberto Gonzalez Rodriguez, also was denied a visa.
However, visas were approved for assembly deputies Ramon Pez Ferro and Ada Martinez. They are not senior Cuban officials and therefore were considered qualified for entry under the proclamation, one of the U.S. officials said.
A State Department spokesman, Philip Reeker, declined to identify which Cubans were denied visas and which were receiving them. He said he was bound by the ''confidentiality'' of the visa process.
However, Reeker confirmed that ''we have authorized issuance of visas to some Cuban officials who applied to travel to this interparliametary Union event'' and ''determined not to issue visas to some people that had applied.''
In New York, Najma Heptulla, president of the Inter-Parliamentary Council, which is the overseeing body of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, called the U.S. decision to bar Alarcon unfortunate.
''This is a conference of presiding officers,'' she said.
Heptulla said the United States, meanwhile, had not paid its dues ''and we are working on it.''
Cuba and the United States have limited diplomatic relations, but Cuban officials have been permitted to travel here to attend U.N. meetings in New York and to staff the small Cuban diplomatic mission in Washington.
The parliamentary group is not a U.N. organization and therefore the United States is not required by agreements with the United Nations to issue visas to individuals attending the group's events in News York, the official said.
Coincidentally, Alarcon is scheduled to be the host of a formal session of the parliamentary union in Havana in April.
Also, Monday, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright accused Cuba of arbitrarily denying exit permits to Cubans with U.S. visas, thereby separating families and forcing would-be immigrants to attempt high-risk escapes by boat.
In a statement, Albright said Cuba's actions violated agreements with the United States, international standards and ''fundamental human decency.''
She said she ordered a formal protest lodged with Cuba's diplomatic office in Washington. ''The government of Cuba is increasingly obstructing the safe, legal and orderly migration of individuals from Cuba,'' Albright said.
Already-bumpy relations with Cuba declined amid a protracted and touchy U.S. dispute with Cuban-Americans last spring over 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez, the only survivor of a November boat passage to Miami that also killed his mother.
Elian returned to Cuba with his father June 28, after a lengthy legal battle with emigre relatives in Florida. The Cuban government cited the incident in June when it indefinitely suspended immigration negotiations with the United States. | 