Business Recorder, March 28
..........LISBON (March 28) : Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage said on Monday his country was making progress in its bid to join a new trade and aid pact with the European Union despite objections to its human rights record.
.........."I think the talks we have had have been of great use and to great advantage," Lage said in Portugal, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
..........Lage held talks with Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama over Cuba's application to join the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of 71 nations that is set to renew the Lome convention in June with the EU, which covers trade and aid.
..........In June 1998, the EU agreed to let Cuba observe negotiations with the ACP, but said Havana would have to improve its human rights record.
.........."We listened with respect to opinions on the human rights situation in Cuba, where we did not agree," Lage said, adding that a "campaign of disinformation and calumnies" did not reflect the true situation in Cuba, where he said rights were fully guaranteed.
..........Gama said the EU was working towards replying soon to Cuba's official application to join the ACP group, but gave no details of any likely outcome.
..........Cuba's most prominent human rights group said earlier in March that more than 350 dissidents had been jailed in the previous four months, four of whom had been tried and convicted.
..........One of the four, medical doctor-turned-activist Oscar Elias Biscet, 38, was handed a three-year sentence for protests including turning the Cuban flag upside-down and waving anti-abortion placards.
..........Lage said the "Group of Four" had all been found guilty of plotting with US government officials in Cuba to "destabilise" the Caribbean island.
.........."These actions deserve to be punished, it's part of our particular situation of being a small country struggling to preserve its independence," he said.
.........."There has been a big international campaign about these four, bigger than human rights violations against 11 million Cubans by the US blockade."
..........US-Cuban relations have been tense since a revolution led by Fidel Castro overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, and the two countries were close to war on several occasions after the new government aligned itself with the former Soviet bloc.--Reuters
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