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September 12, 2002.
Cuban general says Cuba's inclusion on terrorism list is unjustifiable
Wed Sep 11, 2:06 Pm Et. By Vivian Sequera, Associated Press
Writer.
GUANTANAMO, Cuba - Last year's Sept. 11 attacks were unjustifiable, and so
is Cuba's continued inclusion on the U.S. State Department's terrorism watch
list, a Cuban general said Wednesday
The attack on the World Trade Center's twin towers a year ago "has no
justification," Brig. Gen. Jose Solar told international journalists during
a trip to the Cuban-controlled military zone outside the U.S. NAVAL base now
holding detainees from the war in Afghanistan.
"It was a crime ... more than 3,000 innocent people," said Solar,
second in charge of Cuba's Eastern Army, which patrols the zone around the
American military installation on the southeastern end of this Caribbean island.
During the rare tour of the Cuban zone, reporters were taken to a post
outside the U.S. base where they saw the American flag, several kilometers
(miles) away, lowered to half-mast shortly before 9 a.m. in rememberance of when
the first commercial jetliner slammed into New York's World Trade Center.
At another site, dubbed Picote Hill, journalists viewed part of the base's
Camp Delta, where hundreds of detainees are held.
After last year's attack, Cuba's communist government decided not to object
to the American military's use of the base for detainees from the resulting war.
But it still insists that the U.S. government abandon the land and return it to
Cuba.
The move was largely seen as a goodwill gesture by Fidel Castro ( news - web
sites)'s government, despite its irritation that it continues to be included on
the U.S. State Department's terrorism watch list. That list also names Iran,
Iraq and North Korea — the countries U.S. President George W. Bush
describes as an "axis of evils."
Cuba "is a country that always has been willing to fight against
terrorism," the general said.
Since the 1959 Cuban revolution that brought Castro to power, "not a
single American has died" because of actions by the Cuban government, Solar
added.
Mexican foreign ministry feuding with own ambassador in Cuba
Tue Sep 10, 8:37 Pm Et. By Jose Antonio Jimenez, Associated
Press Writer
MEXICO CITY - The feud between Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda and Cuban
President Fidel Castro has spilled over into a spat between Castaneda's ministry
and his own embassy in Havana.
The department's operations manager, Mauricio Toussaint, on Tuesday accused
Mexican Ambassador to Cuba Ricardo Pascoe of about dlrs 86,000 in financial
irregularities.
Pascoe "is not a big fish, but he is a little, Caribbean-colored fish,"
Toussaint quipped during a news conference.
Most of the complaints — such as the "duplicated payments"
Toussaint reported — appeared to be practices that are common among foreign
offices in Cuba. Many companies pay employees a small amount to supplement the
dlrs 20 to dlrs 40 a month they might earn from the state employment bureau,
which provides all workers to foreign companies and embassies.
Toussaint's statements could eventually incriminate some low-paid Embassy
workers or contractors before Cuban authorities.
In Havana, Pascoe denied the accusations and said he was considering legal
action against those he accused of "defaming" him.
"I reject all the accusations and reiterate that it is politically
motivated," Pascoe said of Toussaint's comments.
Pascoe, a member of the opposition Revolutionary Democratic Party, called
the accusations against him "strange" said government auditors had not
previously announced any problems.
"The fact that the results of a supposed audit are being made public
without informing the interested party is approaching criminal and defamatory
conduct," he said.
Pascoe has irritated Castaneda through statements that have not echoed the
country's official policy at a time when Mexican-Cuban relations are at their
most-strained point in decades.
Both men came out of Mexico's socialist left. But while Castaneda has
embraced close ties with the United States and infuriated his former colleagues
on the left, Pascoe has tried to maintain his leftist credentials.
Pascoe has recently questioned official claims that only budget cutbacks
were behind Castaneda's decision to cancel Mexican independence day ceremonies
at the Havana embassy this year.
The feud erupted when Toussaint told a news conference last week that
Pascoe's accounting was under investigation.
Stung, Pascoe held a subsequent news conference to deny any wrongdoing. He
said he had requested the audit, which turned up an immigrant trafficking
network and led to the transfer of two consular officials to Mexico City, where
they were not fired and continued working.
He said the second audit was a "threat," but declined to provide
specifics, insisting he had no plans to resign.
Toussaint on Tuesday accused Pascoe of "little discipline" and
said he "had put the honor of the foreign ministry in doubt."
He complained that Pascoe had several times traveled out of Cuba without
permission from Mexico City, said he had bought goods on the black market —
a common practice in scarcity-plagued Cuba — and said he had shifted dlrs
2,000 from office accounts to his entertainment budget.
Toussaint said he hoped that there would be a more complete investigation "as
soon as possible" and that sanctions would be imposed within the framework
of the law."
That could involve his removal as ambassador, Toussaint said.
Mexico is the only Latin American country that never broke relations with
Cuba after Castro's 1959 revolution and leaders often used ties with the
communist island as a symbol of independence from the United States.
Even though President Vicente Fox has promised to maintain close ties with
Cuba, he irked Castro by naming Castaneda as foreign minister and by trying to
hustle the Cuban leader out of an international summit meeting in the northern
Mexican city of Monterrey before U.S. President George W. Bush ( news - web
sites) arrived.
Castaneda, whose earlier books about Cuba irritated officials on the island,
has accused some critics of caring more about Cuba than about Mexico's
relationship with the United States. | 
