Maravi

Roque asks Bush to reflect on brutality against Cuba

Roque asks Bush to reflect on brutality against Cuba
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Sunday May 25, 2008 [04:00]

REFLECT on your brutality against Cuba, foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque has asked US President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Addressing a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Relations (MinRex) on Thursday, Roque accused US Interests Section in Havana (USIS) head Michael Parmly of being a common courier for money from Cuban-exiles in Miami, Florida to counter-revolutions in Havana.

He challenged President Bush, Rice and the US government in general to provide answers to the question that the US was providing money to Cuban mercenaries and used the USIS as a courier.

"We have the right to know," Perez Roque said. "A situation of this gravity should not be underestimated. We are continuing with this open investigation on terrorism and we hope the US government also investigates it and rectify the problem."

Since last Monday, Cuba has been publishing exposes through the radio and television programme Mesa Redonda about counter-revolutionary activities sponsored from the US through the USIS.

Cuban officials accused leading dissident Martha Beatriz Roque of receiving money from an organisation run by Santiago Alvarez Fernandez-Magrina, a man currently in a US prison for illegal arms possession.

Cuba claimed it had a letter from Martha to US Judge James Cohn, who headed the trial of Alvarez, in which she presented arguments in his support, calling him a good man only interested in Cuba's freedom to justify a lesser sentence which in the end he was granted.

Investigation experts exposed alleged email, footage, exchanges through cellular phones (whose frequency was said to be alarming) and receipts with accompanying signatures for monies transmitted from the US to Cuba-based counterrevolutionaries.
Cuban State Security Historical Research Centre director Manuel Hevia presented documentation on how the Damas de Blanco (Women in White) and counter-revolutionaries Vladimiro Roca, Laura Pollán and Jorge Luis García (Antúnez) were happy with the money.

Hevia also played a recorded message of the US Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of April 18, 2008 in which she thanked the Damas for their work in Cuba.
Perez Roque said Washington must respond to the accusations of its dark relationship with "terrorists".

He said since May 1977, at the creation of the USIS in Havana, it was agreed that the facility would serve as a channel of communications between both governments, offer consular services and comply with international law.
Perez Roque said unfortunately, investigations had shown that the chief of mission and another official in the USIS in Havana were couriers for money supplied by a notorious terrorist from the US to Cuba for the activities of the lackeys who, working for Washington, were attempting to assault Cuba's internal order and national security.

He said each dissident in Havana received some 4,000 Pesos a month which was 10 times the average salary in Cuba.

"Our ministry is envying this budget," Perez Roque said. "This is an offence, a policy aimed at killing people and threatening investment in Cuba."

Perez Roque said it was also known that the US government had expressly allocated US $47 million this fiscal year for activities aimed at destroying the Cuban Revolution.

He said the USIS activities were a fragrant violation of international norms governing diplomatic activities which dictated the need to respect sovereignty and independence of a host country.

Perez Roque wondered what President Bush would have done if the activities were perpetrated by a diplomat accredited to Washington.

"Condoleezza, does she know about these activities?" he asked. "What has she got to say? Are they opposed or in support of these acts? We dare them to answer without using evasive language."

On President Bush's speech of Wednesday in which he said the Cuban society was collapsing, Perez Roque said the pronouncement was decadent.

"The Bush speech was useless, a propaganda in bad taste," he said.

Perez Roque said President Bush should just prepare his exit from White House to his Texas Ranch.

"He is widely unpopular in his own country," said Perez Roque. "He President Bush said is a shame to the people of the US. His own peers don't want to appear in public with him."

So far US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack has only said that the US government had programmes to provide humanitarian aid to people that were essentially forgotten by the Cuban government.

McCormack said the government did not stand in the way of private groups providing such assistance as well.

However, McCormack said he had no clue as to the mechanics that aid assistance was provided.

Labels: CUBA

posted by MrK @ 3:13 AM