Chronicle on Cuba - June 2007

Terrorism

June 2: Cuban diplomats met with Rodrigo Granda, known as the “foreign minister” of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who is in jail in the Colombian department of Caldas, reported local media. The diplomats spoke with Granda in La Dorada penitentiary and offered no comments after the visit. (EFE, 2/6/07)

June 5: A US military judge threw out charges against two Guantanamo Bay detainees, casting fresh doubt on efforts to try foreign terror suspects. Both cases collapsed because military authorities had failed to designate the men as "unlawful" enemy combatants. In one case a Canadian man, Omar Khadr, was accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan with a grenade. The rulings deal a stunning blow to the Bush administration's attempt to bring its detainees at Guantanamo Bay to trial. Under a new system of military justice approved by Congress last year, detainees facing trial must be designated "unlawful enemy combatants". When they were assessed years earlier they were described only as "enemy combatants". The word "unlawful" did not appear, giving the new tribunals no jurisdiction. (BBC, 5/6/07)

June 11: Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has called for an immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay facility that houses suspected terrorists. Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, Mr Powell said all inmates must be transferred to the United States. He added that Guantanamo had caused a lot of harm to the image of the US internationally. “Essentially, we have shaken the belief the world had in America's justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like the military commission," he said. Guantanamo Bay has over 300 suspected terrorists and gained notoriety when reports emerged of inhuman treatment of the inmates. "Guantanamo has become a major, major problem (…) in the way the world perceives America, and if it were up to me I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow," Powell said, adding that he would not let the terrorists go free, but would move them to the United States instead and "put them into our federal legal system." (Earth Times, 11/6/07)

June 11: The Cuban government may possibly receive on the island the so-called “foreign minister” of the FARC, Rodrigo Granda, if a joint request is made by Bogotá and the illegal armed group. (EER, /6/07)

June 14: A campaign to free Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr appears to be gathering momentum in Canada as the fifth anniversary of his capture nears. A group of prominent politicians, lawyers and civil rights organizations sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging him to directly negotiate with US President George W. Bush on Khadr's case. "His case now almost stands alone in terms of individuals who have been abandoned by their government," Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, told a press conference on Parliament Hill. The letter was signed by 25 current and former politicians – including former Liberal foreign affairs minister Bill Graham and former prime minister Joe Clark – nine civil rights organizations and 111 lawyers, academics and social activists. They ask that Khadr be tried under Canadian laws, rather than face the legal uncertainty of Guantanamo Bay. (Toronto Star, 15/6/07)

June 18: A recently freed rebel leader traveled to Cuba, a trip officials hope will advance efforts to release 60 hostages, including three US military contractors. Rodrigo Granda, who had served as a roving diplomat for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, told the press earlier that he was going to Cuba for medical exams and rest after more than two years in jail. A peace facilitator for the Roman Catholic Church, Dario Echeverry, accompanied Granda. He told Caracol Radio that he hopes Granda "can construct a space for himself that will allow him to work for peace and reconciliation in Colombia," but did not say how or whether the rebel leader might contact insurgent representatives while on the communist-led island. President Alvaro Uribe released Granda from prison on June 4 at the request of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who hoped the action would encourage the FARC to free former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian citizen. (AP, 18/6/07)

June 20: Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said that his country supports a negotiated end to the armed conflict in Colombia. The foreign minister made the remarks in a press conference two days after a senior leader from rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) flew to Cuba. He said that supporting peace "is coherent with Cuba's long-term position of contributing to a negotiated solution to Colombia's internal conflict, based on respecting Colombia's sovereignty." Since 2005 Cuba has been offering venues for preliminary negotiations between the Colombian government and Colombia's second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN). "Cuba's role is to create conditions and provide venues so that these conversations can take place in private," Perez said. He confirmed that Rodrigo Granda, the FARC's acting foreign minister, had come to Cuba, "at the request not only of the Colombian government, but also of the FARC." (Xinhua, 21/6/07)