Cuba says US charge of harassment a blatant lie

Cuba says US charge of harassment a "blatant" lie
By Marc Frank 22 minutes ago

Cuba on Tuesday dismissed as a "blatant" lie U.S. charges that power has
been deliberately cut off at its Havana diplomatic mission.

President Fidel Castro's government said the Bush administration and
Miami-based Cuban-American groups opposed to Castro were seeking a
pretext to close the mission and end limited cooperation between the
long-time ideological foes on immigration and other matters.

"They lie blatantly ... "We categorically deny that there have been
premeditated electricity cuts," said a statement carried by all
state-run media.

The communist government blamed a faulty underground electric circuit
for a week-long power outage at the U.S. mission. The Americans also
complained the water flow to the building was periodically reduced,
which Cuba attributed to normal water supply problems in the capital.

The U.S. mission has been operating on generator power.

The latest spat in the 47-year-old war of words, sanctions and other
actions between the two countries has at its epicenter a streaming
message board running along the 6th floor of the U.S. mission that since
January has flashed news and political messages into the Havana night.

A furious Castro denounced the message board as a "gross provocation"
and marched a million people by the building. Then construction workers
tore up the parking lot to mount huge flags that partially block the
board from view.

The harassment charge came from the State Department on Monday, when
spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters the power cutoff and other
problems were probably due to U.S. efforts to provide Cubans with
information about the world.

"This is the same type of harassment that the Cuban people have had to
live with on a daily basis," he said.

Tuesday's Cuban statement charged the U.S. mission under the Bush
administration had become the "bastion, general headquarters and bank of
mercenaries" and that the message board systematically "insulted and
offended" the Cuban people.

The U.S. board uses news from various sources interspersed with messages
offering an often critical view of daily life in Cuba.

The communique said a message on April 7 and 8 read:

"Many decent young Cuban woman can not live decently without doing
something indecent. If you are young and attractive what brings more
benefit: To follow a career or follow a Spaniard."

The statement said if the United States wanted to pack up and leave that
would be fine with Cuba. "We wouldn't shed a single tear," it said.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken off soon
after Cuba's 1959 revolution and U.S. sanctions were slapped on the
Communist country. Interests Sections were established to handle
consular and other activities in Washington and Havana in the late 1970s.

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