May 20, 2000	atimes.com

Oceania Havana denies military talks with Solomon Islands By Dalia Acosta HAVANA - The Cuban government firmly denied Thursday that it is considering providing military aid to the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, as The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, reported. ''There is no such intention. No such request exists,'' stated Cuban Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez on Thursday at his first conference with the foreign press since December. Gonzalez refuted the statements of a high-ranking official from the Solomon Islands who said Wednesday that his government was negotiating military aid from Cuba in order to resolve an internal ethnic conflict that could turn into a civil war. Cuban analysts told IPS it is unlikely that the Fidel Castro government would decide to intercede in a conflict of this type or try to play a role in the Pacific as it did in Africa in past decades. ''Times have changed. Cuba has not yet escaped the economic crisis it has been suffering since 1990 and it is not among its priorities to get involved in a military conflict outside of its territory,'' said a lieutenant-colonel in Cuba's Revolutionary armed Forces (FAR). Experts from the Havana-based Center for Research on America, said it was paradoxical that reports of alleged Cuban military projects would come to light just as the US Congress is considering lifting the embargo on sales of food and medicine to the Caribbean island. Students of hemispheric security on the island, including Chilean researcher Isabel Jaramillo, agree that the capacity of the Cuban army since the early 1990s can only be characterized as defensive. The latest reports by the US Defense Department confirm this assessment of Cuba's military potential. But diplomatic sources do not rule out the possibility that Cuba could offer some type of support for the Solomon Islands in its search for a solution to its ethnic conflict, whether it is through military or peaceful measures. The Solomon Islands' ethnic conflict involves Guadalcanal and Malaita, which make up the archipelago along with Florida, New Georgia, Choiseul, Santa Isabel, San Cristobal, Santa Cruz and other smaller islets. The Solomon Islands official said the country is ready to request military aid and Cuba seems to be willing to listen and provide assistance. In addition to potential military assistance, Cuba seeks to cooperate with the Solomons to take part in mining there, says The Age. The newspaper also indicated that Australian intelligence agencies are closely following negotiations between Cuba and the Solomon Islands, which are alleged to have begun during the G-77 Summit held in Havana in mid-april. The summit involved the United Nations' largest coalition of countries from the developing South, and the Solomon Islands were represented there by Foreign Relations minister Patterson Oti. Oti's activities at the summit were not of great interest to the press in Cuba at the time and there were no reports that he had met with his hosts while in Havana. The Melbourne daily said Wednesday that diplomatic and intelligence sources from the Solomon Islands had confirmed that talks with Cuba had been formalized last week, after Australia had refused a similar request to provide military aid. The Solomon official said that if its major partners, Australia and New Zealand, did not help his country before it ''fell into the chasm,'' it would have to search for help elsewhere, according to The age. A delegation from the Solomon Islands is allegedly ready to go to Havana to discuss a broad range of issues involving mining and other resources, as well as ways Cuba could help resolve other pressing problems. Cuba has not been involved in military actions beyond its borders since the return on May 27, 1991 of the last contingent of soldiers serving in Angola, in accordance with the agreements reached by the two countries in December 1988. Cuba's Defense minister, Raul Castro, has said that in nearly 16 years of military missions in the African country, 377,033 soldiers and 50,000 civilian personnel from Cuba had served there, with a total of 2,077 deaths. Cuba says its presence in Africa was necessary to put an end to South africa's aggressive policies at the time, to ensure Angolan integrity and Namibia's independence, as well as facilitate the release of black South African leader, Nelson Mandela. In the 1960s, the Cuban military provided its services in Algeria, Syria and the Congo and also to Latin American insurgent movements, especially the guerrilla forces in Bolivia and Venezuela. These missions, which Cuba considered its ''internationalist duty,'' were sharply criticized by Washington and by the then-Soviet Union. In the 1970s, its military incursions expanded to include Angola, Ethiopia and Guinea. According to Cuba's state-run press, president Castro announced at a January 1992 closed-door meeting that Cuban interventions would have no place in the future, ''not for the lack of desire, but because they are no longer realistic''. The Solomon Islands, invaded by Japan during the Second World War, negotiated its independence from Britain - declared May 21, 1975. The population is mostly of Melanesian origin, but there are also Polynesian and Micronesian groups, as well as Chinese and European minorities. English and more than 80 dialects are spoken on the islands. An estimated 96 percent of the population is Christian, primarily Protestant, though some continue to practice traditional religions. (Inter Press Service)

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