[news] Murray Dobbin Interview with Cuban Ambassador

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From: shniad at sfu.ca
Date: 10 Sep 2003 22:55:15 -0700

Rabble Magazine     September 3, 2003

Interview with Cuban ambassador 

Murray Dobbin

For thousands of activists in both the developed world and the third world,
Cuba has been both an inspiration and an amazing example of a country that
has actually withstood the extreme hostility of the most powerful nation in
history. The list of accomplishments is equally amazing: a higher literacy
rate and higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate than its
antagonist. The admiration, however, has never been without criticism.	The
issue of human rights, including official attitudes towards sexual
orientation and political dissent, has troubled many supporters and dogged
the Cuban government for years. This spring, just before the United States
launched its war against Iraq, Cuba brought the human rights issue to a
fever pitch by sentencing 75 political dissidents - all with active
connections to James Cason, the new American Interests Section chief in
Havana  to long prison terms and by executing, following a one-day trial,
three hijackers. The debate about these actions amongst the whole range of
Cuban supporters has been intense.  To get the official explanation of these
actions, Vancouver writer Murray Dobbin interviewed Carlos Fernandez de
Cossio, Cubas ambassador to Canada, and a key figure in the next generation
of Cuban leaders.

Murray Dobbin:	Many supporters of Cuba were dismayed this past spring by
the actions of the Cuban government in executing three hijackers and in
sentencing self-described dissidents to long prison terms. People who
followed the case and its background level the criticism that Cuba was not
seriously threatened by these individuals as Cuban security forces had
infiltrated the groups in question and knew their every move.  How does the
Cuban government justify these harsh actions?

Carlos Fernandez: First of all the two issues have to be looked at
separately. Yet both are in the same context. The 75 people who were
arrested in Cuba are by no means the only people who protest in Cuba - who
disagree with the some or all of  the governments policies. The people we
prosecuted were people who were violating the law, were knowingly violating
the law. Laws that were established to protect Cuba from foreign aggression,
foreign aggression that comes from the United States. For a long period Cuba
had decided to have a flexible approach to these people knowing that in
spite of what they were doing there was not much of a threat.

But with the actions of the current United States administration and their
designation of lists of countries that could be eventually subject to 
military aggression changed that. Their disregard of any international law
that could stand in the way of such aggression and the fact that very
influential people who are strong enemies of Cuba have been advocating with
the Bush administration to take the step of military action against Cuba, 
made us feel strongly that we do face a real concrete threat.

We believe that today that there is almost nothing that can stop the United
States from taking such an action. Evidently the UN, despite is opposition
to such actions, cannot stop the US.  Public opinion, in spite of its
opposition to such action, wont stop the US. Even opposition from its
allies wont stop the US. Only Cubas determination to defend its country
and to stop any element that could serve an aggression of this type  will
stop such an aggression.

The people who were prosecuted are people, in a moment of escalation of
United States hostility and aggression, do serve and have served as
mercenaries or agents of a foreign government which is against the law in
Cuba. We do have a right to apply our laws which existed before the trial in
Cuba and we do have reason to think that these people can be a real danger
to our country.

MD:  Few  people who want to support Cuba would dispute anything you have
said about the threat of the United States and the right of Cuba to enforce
its laws. Yet they also ask whether these actions were strategically the
smartest thing for Cuba to have done.	I am thinking specifically of the
executions. Is it not possible that you lost more in global support from
those who support Cuba than you gained in reinforcing your security?  

CF:  You raise a real and legitimate concern. Clearly, Cuba did not do this
to enrage our enemies or to offend our friends. We measured the costs before
we acted. We knew that a heavy propaganda attack would come down on us but
we could not allow the United States to believe that they had the means and
the forces within Cuba that would allow them to make the mistake of invading
Cuba and cause the loss of thousands of lives. For us it was important to
let the United States know that there was no basis for them to miscalculate
in any aggressive plans the might have.

Now that could always be a debate in the future - perhaps it will turn out
to have been a strategic mistake.  We think that it would have been a
strategic mistake if we trusted that nothing would happen and then a year
from now the United States builds a phony case against us, with the help of
their mass media,   portraying these people as a core group capable of
forming a government in Cuba. On this basis the United States could trick
itself -  falsely convince itself - into believing that they could
successfully invade and occupy Cuba. This is exactly what happened with
Iraq.

MD:   Since George W. Bush came to power Cuba has been subjected to new and
more aggressive provocations from the US. Could describe some of those?

CF:   This administration came to power with closer ties to and stronger
support from what we call the Cuban American mafia  - extreme right groups
in Miami with a history of terrorist activity  than any other president in
the history of our bilateral conflict. As a result the Bush administration
came to power with a greater commitment to those people and a greater
identification with their views. One of the areas that has changed as a
result it is the migration issue. 

We achieved with the United States a migratory agreement in 1994-95  as a
result of which the United States granted a minimum 20,000 visas to Cubans
each year, and the United States committed itself to measures to prevent
people from using illegal means to migrate to the United States [and] to
measures such as returning people who were caught on the high seas. But the
United States has always had a loophole in this arrangement - a law called
the Cuban Adjustment Act thanks to which any Cuban who does reach the United
States coast is immediately accepted as a resident. This measure becomes an
encouragement for anyone who wishes to migrate and it becomes above all an
encouragement to people who do alien smuggling. 

The United States had been living up to its commitment of providing 20,000
visas but since the Bush administration sent its new Head of Mission to Cuba
last year, they have reduced the number of visas granted to less that 1,000.
This has created problems for Cuba which like other Latin American countries
faces a strong migratory pressure towards the US. People who have calculated
that they would be given a visa to go to the United States have discovered
that it will be very difficult to obtain one. At the same time they are
received as heroes in the United States if they use violent means to enter
the US. All of this adds up to a major encouragement to commit acts of
violence or piracy to migrate to the US.

The Helms-Burton HB law states that if an uncontrolled migratory flow takes
place from Cuba to the US, the United States should take this as an act of
aggression and should respond in kind. Actions such as those that have
occurred over the past year for us equate to creating the conditions for an
act of aggression - to allow the United States to apply their law which
means that they should react to Cuba militarily if Cuba can be accused of
launching an uncontrolled migratory flow.  

MD:   One of the most serious developments between the United States and
Cuba is the issue what has been dubbed the Cuban Five - the five Cubans
who are now in jail in the United States convicted of espionage. Could you
explain their story?

CF: These are 5 Cuban men who as a result of the persistent terrorist
actions carried out  from the territory of the United States against Cuba 
took on the task infiltrating these organizations. They infiltrated them  to
learn what they did, to alert the Cuban  government of terrorist activity.
There are individuals and organizations that have been organizing, financing
and carrying out terrorist actions in Cuba for years. Many of them are
ex-CIA agents from the 1960 s and 70s and have continued in a semi-private
way carrying out these actions but with the tolerance and to a great extent
with the complicity of the United States  government . 

Faced with United States tolerance of these terrorist activities we have
been forced to infiltrate these organizations and that is what these 5 men
did. They did not infiltrate the United States	government  or	government 
agencies nor were they in the United States to act against the interests of
the US.  

For this they were convicted in a very unfair trial which violated many
United States legal processes. They were tried in Miami and sentenced to
extremely long terms  - one got two consecutive life sentences, two got 19
years and one got 15 years. Nothing was proved against them except being the
non-registered agents of a foreign  government	and in some cases it was
proven that they were living under a false identity. Nothing else was
proved. No witness was able to corroborate that they took any action that
would endanger the security of the US. There was no evidence whatever of
what in the United States is defined as espionage.

They have been subjected to extremely harsh conditions. Before the trial -
for seventeen months - each one of them was in solitary confinement; they
were allowed no reading material; they were scattered in jails around the
country and not allowed any visits from their families.

MD: What is the political background to these trials and convictions?

CF: It seems that the United States had monitored these men for about a year
before they were arrested. They had detected that they were acting as agents
of the Cuban government and had concluded that they were no danger to the
United States government and simply tolerated their presence. In the summer
of 1998 when terrorist actions started to build in Cuba and after serious
terrorists actions were taken against the United States in different parts
of the world, the United States called for co-operation from foreign
governments. Cuba once again reiterated that we were ready to co-operate but
that we knew that there was terrorism being generated in the United States
against our country. They said that they wanted proof - we said we had that
- and they sent a high level FBI delegation to Havana to discuss this. We
presented them with abundant evidence of what was being planned, they said
they would come back in two weeks with their response. A month and a half
later they arrested these five men.

They did not arrest them because of what they learned as a result of the
meeting; they arrested them evidently because we were getting too close to
powerful individuals in the United States. You see, not only is there
tolerance of terrorist activity by the United States government  but there
is a strong intimacy between those terrorist groups and figures within
important agencies of the United States government  with important political
contacts. Evidently the  government  felt it was not in their interest for
this level of information to continue to flow to Cuba making it possible for
it to become widely known.

MD: What is the current situation regarding the Cuban Five?

CF: An appeal of the convictions and sentences was launched in April and we
are waiting for a response from the government. We have been told that we
will be given an oral hearing to make our case for the appeal in which we
will be allowed just three minutes to present our arguments for appeals on
all five cases.  Perhaps early next year we could hear from the appeals
court on what we have requested - that is, a retrial in a venue other than
Miami where we argue it is impossible to get a fair trial.


Murray Dobbin is a Vancouver writer. 



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