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Cuba harassing US with Havana power cut: official

Posted on: Monday, 12 June 2006, 15:41 CDT

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba has cut electricity to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana for the last week, a U.S. official said on Monday, and Washington said the Castro government was trying to harass it.

"On Monday, June 5, at approximately 3 a.m., electricity to the main building of the United States Interests Section (USINT) in Havana, Cuba was cut off," a statement issued on Monday by mission spokesperson Drew Blakeney said.

Requests to the Cuban government to restore power have gone unanswered, and the mission operates on generator power, the statement said.

In Washington, the United States complained on Monday the cutoff was bullying but vowed to continue business as usual at the site.

"This is the same type of harassment that the Cuban people have had to live with on a daily basis," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

McCormack, who said water supply was periodically reduced too, added that the power cutoff was probably aimed at trying to thwart the United States from providing Cubans with information about the world.

Tension indeed began mounting in January when the United States turned on a streaming message board running along the 6th floor of the building to send news and political messages into the night.

A furious President Fidel Castro denounced the move 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 ticker from view.

Cuban officials were not immediately available for comment.

Blakeney's statement said the Castro government's "latest harassment" includes refusing to allow the mission to import vehicles, preventing the hiring of Cuban personnel to work in maintenance, construction and other capacities; intruding into diplomats' homes, and failing to grant the majority of official U.S. government visa requests for personnel being assigned to work in Havana.

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.

Source: REUTERS

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