Cuba says it cut U.S. phone links, but calls connect

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Cubans hooked up to relatives in the United States on Friday despite Havana's assertion it had cut telephone communications as a retaliatory move in a money dispute that has its roots in Cuba's downing of two planes.

Cuba's national telephone company ETECSA, a Cuban-Italian joint venture, said it had complied with an earlier government announcement that direct phone links would be cut off from the start of Friday unless U.S. firms paid a new tax.

"The measure was carried out," an official at ETECSA's public relations' office told Reuters. "The leadership of the country took a decision, and of course ETECSA has complied."

But some Cubans consulted by Reuters said they had been able to have phone contact with the United States since the anticipated midnight cut-off.

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And calls between midnight into mid-morning made by Reuters correspondents from Cuba to the United States -- and vice-versa -- did connect, albeit with some difficulty.

Calls from Cuba required more attempts dialing than usual before they connected, implying possible problems were occurring. And some U.S. phone calls into Cuba had a metallic sound as if they were coming via a new route -- a practice American firms used to circumvent the last cut-off in 1999.

If carried out, a total telephone cut-off would disrupt communications between Cubans on the communist-run Caribbean island and the large Cuban American community in Florida and elsewhere in the United States during the year-end holiday season.

ETECSA operators stated categorically that telephone calls to the United States had ceased, but could not explain how some connections were still being made.

Last year, U.S. companies partially found a way round the cut-off by bouncing calls off satellites and rerouting through third countries like Canada, Italy and Mexico.

All hinges on 1996 shootdown

Cuba said last week it would cut the telephone links because U.S. telecoms had not been authorized by Washington to pay a new 10 percent tax Cuba imposed in October.

That levy was in response to a U.S. measure allowing use of frozen funds to compensate families of Cuban-American pilots killed whose planes were downed by a Cuban fighter in 1996.

Telephone links between the United States and Cuba, which have no formal diplomatic ties, are provided by ETECSA and half a dozen U.S. firms, with proceeds shared equally.

In the 1999 dispute, also over frozen U.S. telephone payments, Havana cut five of seven telephone circuits between the nations, but then restored them in April of this year. Calls could still be made during the measure, although often with problems.

The latest dispute goes back to a bill passed by the U.S. Congress in October allowing use of the frozen Cuban funds, a move Havana condemns as "robbery."

The U.S. legislation targeted frozen funds due to Cuba's telephone company for communications services between the two countries between 1966 and 1994. These are estimated by Havana to total more than $120 million.

Cuba blames the U.S. government for the 1996 shoot-down of the two small planes, whose four crew members were killed by missiles fired by the Cuban fighter. The four dead men belonged to a Cuban exile group, Brothers to the Rescue, which searched for Cuban rafters leaving the island.

Havana said the four had engaged in "provocative" flights close to the island that U.S. authorities were tolerating.

The October phone tax decree said use of the frozen Cuban funds to compensate the dead pilots' families would prompt similar violations and "acts of air and sea piracy by terrorist groups which feel they have the backing to act with impunity."

Both the U.S. government and a leading Cuban exile group strongly condemned threat to cut direct telephone ties.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Brothers to the Rescue (Hermanos al Rescate)
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