Scripps Howard News Service.
The bakersfield Californian. Tuesday
October 23, 2001, 01:31:00 PM.
(SH) - The Castro regime, seemingly in a state of permanent socialist
indignation, is now really furious.
Vladimir Putin abruptly pulled the plug on Russia's huge radar surveillance
and eavesdropping base at Lourdes, just outside Havana. The spy base was built
in 1964 to watch for a possible U.S. invasion and later on to monitor
communications on the U.S. mainland, including, it is said, the battle plans for
the Gulf War. Putin made the calculation that Lourdes and Russian basing rights
at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam were outdated relics of the Cold War.
Not only does Cuba lose the $200 million in cash and subsidies Russia paid
in annual rent and the income from the 1,500 Russians who worked there, Cuba
loses it last threadbare claim to be even a bit player in the great power game.
Thanks to the new strategic realignment, Cuba is basically alone; Lourdes was
its last symbolic link to the patronage of the old Soviet Union.
The Castro government accused Putin of toadying to the Bush administration
and insisted that Russia could not walk away without Cuba's agreement.
Technically, the facility will be mothballed, but if it deteriorates as much as
everything else under Castro's care, it should be useless in no time at all.
The United States has long fumed about Lourdes, and last year Congress voted
to block any debt relief for Russia as long as the facility remained open. Not
that Russia is going out of the spy business. Russia's top military official,
Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin, says the savings will be used to put up more spy
satellites.
So, the Russians save some money and improve both their defense posture and
their relations with the United States. The United States is finally free of an
irritating remnant of the Cold War. And Castro is irate and irrelevant.
Sounds like a win-win situation.
Copyright © 2001, The Bakersfield Californian | 
