CUBA Challenges Washington to Respond to Serious Allegations

[magbana]

Cuba Challenges Washington to Respond to Serious Accusations

HAVANA, Cuba, May 22 (acn) Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque
challenged the United States administration, President George Bush
and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not to keep evading a
response about the serious accusations made by Cuba of the illegal
behavior of US diplomats at the US Interest Section in Havana, who
have served as money couriers between US-based terrorists and
mercenaries in Cuba.

In a press conference Thursday at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, attended by the national and international press, Perez
Roque said that US authorities must tell the public opinion what they
know about the behavior of their diplomats and what they think about
it, and if they support the money courier role played by the Chief of
the US Interest Section in Havana Michael Parmly.

The Cuban foreign minister said that US authorities have not yet
given a straight response to the Cuban accusations; they have limited
themselves to only using evading and mumbling language, said Perez
Roque as he cited a communiqué released by the US Interest Section
and recent statements by US Department of State spokesman Sean
McCormack to the international press.

It is cynical for the US government to limit family remittances from
the United States while at the same time plays the role of
intermediary of terrorists who send money to Cuba to support
subversive actions by mercenaries.

Perez Roque pointed out that the case under investigation by Cuban
authorities has revealed three serious aspects: the participation of
US diplomats in bringing money sent by terrorists to
counterrevolutionaries in Cuba; the in-return action by Cuba-based
mercenaries to help diminish the sentence imposed on terrorist
Santiago Alvarez Fernandez Magriña (their money source) by having
sent documents that present Alvarez as a supporter of so-called human
rights groups in Cuba; and the illegal role played by the US Interest
Section in encouraging, financing, organizing, directing and
monitoring counterrevolutionary actions aimed at destabilizing
internal order in Cuba.

Such actions violate Cuban law, US legislations and international
law, while they constitute an offense to Swiss diplomacy, which
accepted to represent US interests in Cuba and Cuban interests in the
United States, said Perez Roque.

Cuba’s top diplomat went on to ask: What would happen if Martha
Beatriz Roque—in reference to the mercenary ringleader who receives
the money and hands over part of it to other
counterrevolutionaries—lived in the U.S. and were accused of
receiving money from terrorists through Cuban diplomats to act
against the United States?

The top Cuban government official said that Washington must take the
appropriate steps about the attitude assumed by US diplomats in
Havana and that the serious actions they made can not be
underestimated.

He also referred to the latest provocation by the US Interest Section
in a home of a US diplomat in the Havana Miramar district, which was
the place for counterrevolutionaries to meet and watch the most
recent speech by President Bush while Cuba was making its
denunciations.

As to the speech by US President, Perez Roque said it was a decadent
and cynical show, an act of ridiculous propaganda and bad taste. He
dubbed Bush an exhausted ruler; a president making his suitcase
amidst rejection and discredit by his own people and fellow
Republicans.

http://www.cubanews.ain.cu