Uruguay accuses Cuba of spying

Friday, March 5, 2004

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AFP): Uruguay's lower house of Congress Wednesday passed a resolution denouncing Cuba's intelligence services for listening in on telephone calls made from inside the congressional building.

The resolution, which passed with 41 votes of 77 deputies present, expresses "the most severe condemnation" for all acts carried out on national territory or from another territory toward Uruguay aimed at violating the legislative body's rights.

Nationalist lawmaker Jaime Trobo, who reported the case, said that a visiting member of the Cuban National Assembly, Lazaro Barredo, said on February 25 that Cuban intelligence had probed the origin and destination of phone calls and email messages sent by a Uruguayan deputy from Congress.

Barredo spoke at a conference in Montevideo in late February, held at Montevideo's city hall. The Montevideo city government has been run by a leftist coalition since November 1989.

Havana and Montevideo broke off diplomatic relations in April 2002 after a public row in which Cuban leader Fidel Castro lambasted Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle after Montevideo supported a motion on Cuba's human rights record at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

Leftist lawmakers voted against Wednesday's resolution.

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