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By Carol Rosenberg. Crosenberg@herald.com. Posted on Thu,
Feb. 06, 2003 in The Miami
Herald.
Cuban agents have left human waste in the Havana homes of American
diplomats, disturbed their sleep and tempted married envoys with sexual affairs
in a harassment campaign aimed at exhausting the U.S. officials, according to an
internal State Department document obtained by The Herald.
Originally classified, the cable was written by the U.S. Interests Section
in Havana in December and outlines complaints that while not new, are
exceptional in their details. It was declassified this week.
Diplomats and opponents of the Fidel Castro government have complained for
years about harassment of U.S. government employees by Cuban agents and the
so-called Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), Communist party
loyalists who stage protests outside Castro opponents' homes.
The cable went further, detailing these allegations:
- U.S. diplomats and their families "are denied rest or relaxation by
house alarms triggered in the middle of the night . . . phones that ring at all
hours, and by cellphones that ring every half hour for no apparent reason.''
- Cars belonging to U.S. diplomats who talk regularly with Cuban dissidents
on the island are particular targets, their tires slashed, windows smashed and
insides ''pilfered.'' Sometimes, as evidence of an intrusion, they find their
car radios re-tuned to pro-Castro stations.
- The Cubans search and wiretap the Americans' Havana residences, including
tapping into their home computers, leaving open doors and windows behind and
'leaving not-so-subtle 'messages' . . . including unwelcome calling cards like
urine and feces.''
''In one example that demonstrates how regime officials actually listen to
the daily activities of the [U.S. diplomatic] staff, presumably through
electronic bugs, shortly after one family discussed the susceptibility of their
daughter to mosquito bites, they returned home to find all of their windows open
and the house full of mosquitoes,'' the report said.
In Washington, a senior State Department official said Cuban agents
monitoring U.S. diplomats in Cuba have ''gotten more aggressive'' in recent
months. ''They're engaged in active psychological operations against U.S.
personnel. Spouses are not immune. Children are not immune,'' said the official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Using language reminiscent of Cold War conditions for Americans operating
behind the Iron Curtain, the nearly three-page cable also said that the
diplomats "are treated to a steady diet of officially sanctioned
provocations, surveillance, recruitment attempts and harassment.''
For example, it alleged, the Cuban government 'has even run campaigns of
'sexual advances' against USINT personnel (Interests Section employees) when
their spouses are out of the country.''
It also said that Cuban government officials "routinely dangle false
opportunities for contacts and information on issues of interest to the U.S.,
like refugee smuggling and dissident activities.''
U.S. and Cuban relations are carried out through an Interests Section, a
diplomatic mission that is of lesser stature than a formal embassy. Washington
severed ties with Havana in 1961 and resumed partial relations in 1977 during
the Carter administration.
The cable said the goal of harassment was to ''take a psychological and
physical toll'' on the American envoys. Sometimes, the U.S. diplomats and their
staff return home simply to find their doors and windows open, and air
conditioners left running. Others are sometimes filmed in and around their homes
by Cuban CDR members.
Dennis K. Hays, a retired U.S. diplomat who worked on U.S.-Cuban issues and
is now the chief Washington lobbyist for the Cuban American National Foundation,
said the experiences outlined in the report are not new.
''What's unusual,'' he said, "is that it's been compilated.''
He dismissed a suggestion that the memo may have become public to underscore
some Cuban exiles' wish to remind the Bush administration of Castro at a time
when it is campaigning to topple Saddam Hussein.
''I think it just came out, without any connection,'' he said.
The State Department official, who spoke to The Herald on condition of
anonymity, said there's been consistent harassment of United States employees in
Havana for many years. More recently, diplomats detected an increase, perhaps
related to a more active outreach by U.S. Interests Section personnel to
dissidents and human rights activists on the island.
''This has really unnerved them. So this is how they've reacted,'' the
official said.
A spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington did not return
repeated phone messages seeking a comment.
Tim Johnson of the Herald's Washington bureau contributed to this report.
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