Senior Cuban officials have voiced their opposition to Washington's plans for housing Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners at a US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay on the communist-run Caribbean island.
"Of course, we don't agree with this, since even though it is occupied by the Americans, this is Cuban territory," said General Ramon Espinosa, head of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces' eastern section, which includes the Guantanamo area.
Espinosa, stressed, however, that the proposal to turn the US facility on Cuba's southeast tip into a detention centre should not ruffle the military calm on the base's border, which is heavily guarded on both sides.
"We hope to maintain that zone as it is today, pretty quiet on both sides," he said, adding that Cuba aspired to regain control of the area one day "by peaceful means."
Another senior member of President Fidel Castro's government, Higher Education Minister Fernando Vecino Alegret, also criticized the plan to bring detainees from the conflict in Afghanistan half-way around the world to the century-old base.
"I think it would be yet another mistake by the Americans to use that usurped territory ... I think there will be repudiation of that around the world," Vecino told reporters outside a special session of Cuba's National Assembly parliament.
Cuban Attorney General Juan Escalona scoffed at the proposal as "another provocation" from the Americans."
While condemning the September 11 attacks on the United States, Havana has also opposed the bombardment of Afghanistan, calling it a barbaric massacre of civilians to advance imperial goals.
Castro and his ruling Communist Party have long opposed their political foe's military presence at the 116 sq km base in Guantanamo Bay, calling the installation a "dagger pointed at Cuba's heart".
US Presence since 1898
The base was founded after US Marines landed at Guantanamo Bay in 1898 during the Spanish-American War and, under a 1934 treaty, can only be disbanded by mutual consent or if the US forces pull out voluntarily.
Castro has still not commented in public on the US plan, and state media have not mentioned the news.
Ordinary Cubans appeared to agree with the officials. "We don't tell the Americans what to do in their territory, so they shouldn't come here and dictate on our land," 26-year-old Julio Mier said on a Havana street.
In his announcement last week, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Washington did not anticipate any trouble from Havana over the use of Guantanamo, which he described as "the least worst place we could have selected."
One senior US military official said that ultimately hundreds of captured al Qaeda and Taliban members could be brought to Guantanamo for interrogation. Washington accuses the al Qaeda network, which had been protected in Afghanistan by the former Taliban government, of masterminding the September 11 attacks.
At the weekend's special session of the Cuban parliament, five Cuban agents jailed in Florida on spy charges were awarded the distinction of "Heroes of the Republic" and lauded as patriots unfairly punished for trying to block anti-communist "terrorism."
"They have carried out with exemplary dedication, dignity and firmness the sacred mission of defending the fatherland and protecting it from terrorism," said a citation read by National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon in Castro's presence.
At sentencing in recent days, three of the five alleged members of "The Wasp Network" spy ring received life sentences, while the other two were jailed for 15 and 19 years respectively.
Castro, in a lengthy speech to parliament, hailed the "extraordinary patriotism" of the five and announced 2002 would be officially named in Cuba "The Year of the Heroic Prisoners of Imperialism" in their honour.
"They will return!" he vowed, drawing an ovation from legislators.
As part of a mass campaign to demand their release, 40,000 Cubans attended a state-organized rally earlier on Saturday in western Pinar del Rio province.
© Reuters
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