BY MARTÍN KOPPEL

HAVANA, Cuba - In a press conference broadcast live on television here June 24, Ricárdo Alarcón accused Washington of lying and doctoring evidence to justify its slanders against the Cuban government around the February 24 shootdown of two hostile U.S. aircraft over its territorial waters.

Alarcón, president of the country's National Assembly, also presented his government's demand that the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) take the necessary time to complete its investigation and not rush to vote on a report on its findings. He accused Washington of trying to tell the agency what to report and other abusive actions.

On June 20 U.S. undersecretary of state Peter Tarnoff had held a press conference at the White House where he quoted from the report, which ICAO council members had not yet seen. Tarnoff said the ICAO report concluded that Havana downed the two "civilian" planes over international waters, not in Cuba's airspace.

Washington has used this claim to justify passage of the so- called Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act - also known as the Helms-Burton law - which escalates its economic war on Cuba.

The ICAO council convened in Montreal June 26 to discuss and vote on its investigative commission's findings. As we go to press, ICAO has not announced a decision.

"While Mr. Tarnoff was meeting with journalists at the White House," Alarcón said, "representatives of sovereign states on the ICAO council in the city of Montreal were wondering what had just been published that morning in the Miami Herald and reprinted in other U.S. media announcing Tarnoff's press conference and referring to the report," which they themselves hadn't received.

Members of Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based group led by Cuban counterrevolutionaries with a long record of terrorist actions, piloted three Cessna aircraft that violated Cuba's airspace February 24. Two of the three planes were shot down after ignoring unambiguous warnings by Cuban air traffic controllers and air force jets. The third plane, piloted by the group's head, José Basulto, returned to Florida. The Cuban government reports that this invasion of Cuban airspace was the 10th such violation over the past 20 months. Washington has acknowledged many of these violations but refused to stop them.

Alarcón noted that ICAO launched its investigation March 6. The Cuban government promptly provided all evidence it had. This included the original tapes of radio communications between the Cuban pilots and air traffic controllers and the Brothers to the Rescue intruders, Cuban radar data, interviews with those involved in the incident, personal items from the four crew members who died in the shootdown, and debris from the wreckage recovered in Cuban waters. "By March 30, 1996, the Cuban authorities had fully complied with all the requests by the investigating team," Alarcón stated.

In contrast, the Cuban leader said, Washington stonewalled for two months, has refused to provide certain data, and may even have altered some recordings of radio communications in its possession. After failing to meet deadlines in May and then June for providing information, U.S. authorities never turned over data from its radar in Florida on the February 24 flights. Washington claims the data was erased 15 days after the incident.

During visits in Miami and Washington, D.C., ICAO investigators interviewed only one person besides U.S. government and military officials: José Basulto.

The commission's findings repeat assertions by U.S. government officials as facts, without independent corroboration, Alarcón said. For example, the ICAO report asserts Washington's claim that the U.S. fishing boat Majestic Seas was fishing tuna near the Havana harbor on February 24 and its crew members saw and heard the Cessnas being shot down over international waters. But the report never refers to a single interview with the vessel's crew or passengers.

U.S. authorities provided a copy of a tape of radio transmissions between Cuban air force pilots and traffic controllers, which has a portion that differs from the Cuban recording. But Washington has refused to turn over the original tape and ICAO investigators did not interview any of the U.S. technicians involved to corroborate its authenticity, unlike what the commission did in Cuba, Alarcón pointed out.

What did U.S. authorities do for two whole months? Alarcón asked. "One day you'll read in the press - I don't know if they'll refer to it as Basultogate, Airgate, or Gusanogate," he said, "revelations about what exactly they did, how they did it, who they bribed, who they bought off, who erased certain tapes, and who fabricated other tapes." ICAO investigators acknowledged during the council's June 26 meeting in Montreal that they were never given the original radio tapes from U.S. authorities.

While the ICAO report treats uncorroborated U.S. claims as good coin, it refers to any Cuban statement with the qualifier "according to Cuban authorities," Alarcón noted. It also omits important evidence presented by the Cuban government.

The report makes no reference, for example, to a documentary film Alarcón handed to ICAO investigators showing U.S. military officers training Brothers to the Rescue pilots in Florida. The film was shot by Juan Pablo Roque, who was a member of the Brothers and returned to Cuba just before February 24. The report does not mention photographs published by the Miami Herald showing Brothers to the Rescue planes with U.S. Air Force insignia, or any of the voluminous documentation of Basultós long record of counterrevolutionary activities throughout Latin America, often organized by the CIA. It instead refers to Brothers to the Rescue as a humanitarian group using civilian planes.

On the other hand, the investigating commission spent seven days meeting in Montreal behind closed doors with U.S. government officials.

It remains to be seen, Alarcón said, "whether those who vote [in the ICAO council] will permit a decision to be made under the U.S. boot, following U.S. orders, or whether they will do what they have to do: allow adequate time and create the necessary conditions for a serious investigation." Alarcón pointed out that after hampering the investigation for two months, Washington was suddenly demanding the council take action in one day on a 200-page report its members received a day earlier.

"Why press the [ICAO] members to take position on a report they received at the last minute?" Alarcón told Radio-Canada in Montreal June 26. The U.S. delegation, headed by transportation secretary Federico Peña, has pressed for a quick vote.  
 
 
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