CUBA MAKING LIFE MISERABLE FOR U.S. DIPLOMATS

By: CAROL ROSENBERG, MIAMI HERALD

Cuban agents have left human waste in the Havana homes of American diplomats, disturbed their sleep and tempted married envoys with sexual affairs in a harassment campaign aimed at exhausting the U.S. officials, according to an internal State Department document obtained by The Miami Herald.

Originally classified, the cable was written by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana in December and outlines complaints that while not new, are exceptional in their details. It was declassified last week.

Diplomats and opponents of the Fidel Castro government have complained for years about harassment of U.S. government employees by Cuban agents and the so-called Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, Communist party loyalists who stage protests outside Castro opponents' homes. The cable went further, detailing these allegations:

* U.S. diplomats and their families "are denied rest or relaxation by house alarms triggered in the middle of the night, ... phones that ring at all hours and by cellphones that ring every half hour for no apparent reason." * Cars belonging to U.S. diplomats who talk regularly with Cuban dissidents on the island are particular targets -- their tires slashed, windows smashed and insides "pilfered." Sometimes, as evidence of an intrusion, they find their car radios re-tuned to pro-Castro stations.

* The Cubans search and wiretap the Americans' Havana residences, including tapping into their home computers, leaving open doors and windows behind and "leaving not-so-subtle 'messages,' ... including unwelcome calling cards like urine and feces."

"In one example that demonstrates how regime officials actually listen to the daily activities of the [U.S. diplomatic] staff, presumably through electronic bugs, shortly after one family discussed the susceptibility of their daughter to mosquito bites, they returned home to find all of their windows open and the house full of mosquitoes," the report said.

In Washington, a senior State Department official said Cuban agents monitoring U.S. diplomats in Cuba have "gotten more aggressive" in recent months. "They're engaged in active psychological operations against U.S. personnel. Spouses are not immune. Children are not immune," said the official.

Using language reminiscent of Cold War conditions for Americans operating behind the Iron Curtain, the nearly three-page cable also said the diplomats "are treated to a steady diet of officially sanctioned provocations, surveillance, recruitment attempts and harassment."

For example, it alleged, the Cuban government "has even run campaigns of 'sexual advances' against USINT personnel [Interests Section employees] when their spouses are out of the country."

It also said Cuban government officials "routinely dangle false opportunities for contacts and information on issues of interest to the U.S., like refugee smuggling and dissident activities."

U.S. and Cuban relations are carried out through an Interests Section, a diplomatic mission that is of lesser stature than a formal embassy. Washington severed ties with Havana in 1961 and resumed partial relations in 1977 during the Carter administration.

The cable said the goal of harassment was to "take a psychological and physical toll" on the American envoys. Sometimes, the U.S. diplomats and their staff return home simply to find their doors and windows open and air conditioners left running. Others are sometimes filmed in and around their homes by Cuban CDR members.

Dennis K. Hays, a retired U.S. diplomat who worked on U.S.-Cuban issues and is now the chief Washington lobbyist for the Cuban American National Foundation, said the experiences outlined in the report are not new, but he found it unusual that the specifics had been compiled.

He dismissed a suggestion that the memo may have become public to underscore some Cuban exiles' wish to remind the Bush administration of Castro at a time when it is campaigning to topple Saddam Hussein."I think it just came out, without any connection," he said.

The State Department official who spoke to The Miami Herald said there has been consistent harassment of U.S. employees in Havana for many years. More recently, diplomats detected an increase, perhaps related to a more active outreach by U.S. Interests Section personnel to dissidents and human rights activists on the island."This has really unnerved them, so this is how they've reacted," the official said.

A spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington did not return repeated phone messages seeking comment.

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