Friday, December 8, 2006

GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP): The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday it would seek access to prisons in Cuba, one of the few countries to deny it permission to visit political detainees.

ICRC president Jakob Kellenberger told reporters he planned to make a new request to the government in Havana.

The ICRC has not been able to visit Cuban prisons since July 1959; seven months after President Fidel Castro came to power.

After armed Cuban exiles launched the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 in a US-backed bid to overthrow the Castro government, more than 1,000 of them were captured and incarcerated.

When the ICRC asked to visit them to ensure they were receiving fair treatment under international humanitarian law, Havana said no.

In March 1962, when the Bay of Pigs prisoners were about to go on trial, the ICRC wrote to Castro saying it presumed Havana would respect Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. It repeated its request to be allowed to visit the jailed fighters.

Again the request was rebuffed. "The doors were closed to the ICRC, which did not obtain permission to send delegates to Cuba for many years to come," the ICRC says on its website.

By contrast, ICRC delegates have regularly visited detainees at the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and have strongly criticised the absence of a legal framework "that appropriately addresses either the detainees' status or the future of their detention".

"The ICRC believes that uncertainty about the prisoners' fate has added to the mental and emotional strain experienced by many detainees and their families," it says on its website.

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