UNITED NATIONS, December 20, 2006.- Calling a last minute change in speaking privileges “capricious” and demonstrating the urgent need for reform of the Security Council, Cuba protested the Council´s refusal to allow its attendance at a debate on terrorism. In his letter to the Council, Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca highlighted the importance of Cuba in fighting terrorism and recalled Cuba's prior attendance at these quarterly meetings. However, we have been told of a new format in which only Committee presidents will address the meeting, hindering the transparency and representation that should distinguish Council work, adds the letter. Cuba's attendance, as well that of other interested countries, would give the Council different viewpoints on this important matter, since the consequences are of interest to every member state, it continued. Since this was the last Council meeting of the year with its subsidiaries, it was the right moment for a year assessment, and the Cuban ambassador asked the Council to distribute his letter as an official document, with an addendum of the text of his address. The text details information that Cuba provides to the Security Council on Cuban anti-terrorist actions against several people and organizations and the US Federal protection they enjoy. The ambassador said he regretted that although the documents were submitted in time to Council´s anti-Terrorism Committee, it has not even assessed its contents nor launched a probe into the US violation of several Security Council resolutions. The diplomat termed it impossible to eliminate terrorism if just a handful of such actions are condemned, while others are met with silence, toleration or justification, or are simply manipulated to promote petty political interests. Cuba has given the Security Council ample and detailed information on notorious international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and the United States continues to violate its international duties in that matter. Malmierca also noted that the ramifications of terrorist anti-Cuba actions in the US "seem endless" and recalled the US media uncovered the destruction of Posada Carriles' FBI files in 2003. That is added to US Federal refusal to declassify thousands of secret documents on terrorists Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles kept at the George Washington University National Security Archives. As new evidence of US Federal collusion in anti-Cuba terrorist actions, Malmierca denounced the ridiculous sentences a Federal Court in Florida gave terrorists Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitad. Alvarez and Mitad backed Posada Carriles' illegal entry into the US aboard the fishing vessel Santrina and was caught in possession of an illegal arsenal of weapons and explosives that he intended to use against Cuba. “Even the judge called those terrorists 'patriots' in public, so his giving them a minimal sentence showed his sympathy to the anti-Cuba actions for which they had stored the weapons." By contrast, the US holds Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez in maximum security prisons. These five Cuban men only attempted, with altruism and courage, to prevent violent actions and save the lives of Cuban and US citizens." (Cubaminrex-PL)
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