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US: Cuba like Ku Klax Klan
11/12/2005 08:16 - (SA)
Havana - The new top US diplomat in Cuba met publicly with Cuban dissidents for the first time on Saturday and accused President Fidel Castro's communist government of abusing its political foes.
"We are calling on the world to reject and draw attention to these intolerable crimes," said Michael Parmley, new chief of the US Interests section in Havana, at a gathering to mark International Human Rights Day.
It was Parmley's first public address since taking up the post three months ago.
"The often violent actions of groups supporting the Cuban regime, who angrily confront dissidents who are supporting democracy, is especially repugnant," Parmley told a group of disidents and diplomats.
"The regime would like us to believe that these so-called 'shows of outrage' outside dissidents' homes are spontaneous. The regime is resorting to a modern version of the Nazi brown shirts or the Ku Klux Klan to do this dirty work," Parmley charged.
"In Cuba, International Human Rights Day is a sad occasion," he added. "There are more than 300 political prisoners" in the Caribbean nation of more than 11 million.
Parmley replaced James Cason who clashed openly and often with Castro's government, the only one-party communist regime in the Americas.
- AFP
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