Adams urges end to Cuba sanctions

HAVANA, Cuba -- Northern Irish nationalist leader Gerry Adams has urged Washington to end the four-decade U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.

But Adams, whose Sinn Fein party is the political ally of the Irish Republican Army, said this move and his own trip to the Caribbean nation may present "difficulties" for the United States.

"There should be dialogue between the people of Cuba and the people of the USA and the blockade should be ended," he said on Monday during a politically delicate visit to Cuba.

"I know that many present difficulties, as indeed my visit here may present difficulties," he added, noting that Sinn Fein's stance coincided with a recent U.N. General Assembly vote to condemn the embargo.

"Sinn Fein has never felt they have the right to tell any other government, with the exception of the British government, what it should do, but we would like to see dialogue and normalisation of relationships everywhere," Adams added.

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"I think that those people who support us in the USA will understand this position."

Sinn Fein has been striving to build up its political standing in the United States, where it draws considerable financial support from Irish-Americans who back its opposition to British rule in Northern Ireland.

Washington supports the Irish peace process and the current power-sharing government in Belfast that includes Sinn Fein, and the previous administration of President Bill Clinton helped to broker the 1998 peace accord.

Adams three-day visit to Havana has also focused attention on the case of three suspected IRA members -- including one, Niall Connolly, who was Sinn Fein's representative in Cuba -- jailed in Colombia accused of training Marxist FARC rebels.

Washington, which labels the FARC a terrorist organisation, cautioned in September that an Adams trip to Cuba would raise "troubling questions" if it turned out the IRA had links to the FARC guerrillas.

Three suspected IRA members are currently jailed in Colombia suspected of training left-wing FARC rebels there. One of those arrested was Niall Connolly -- Sinn Fein's representative in Cuba.

Adams reiterated Sinn Fein's position that the three men in Colombia should be released. He initially denied that Connolly was a Sinn Fein official, then said he had been appointed to the post without his knowledge.

Adams has rejected the notion that his visit to communist Cuba would not play well among his Irish-American supporters in the United States.

"Having been in America as recently as November, there will be some people clearly who support the peace process, who support Sinn Fein, who support the Irish cause, who will not agree with me going to Cuba, but I think they will accept and understand it." Adams told reporters during a stop in Paris.

He also emphasised that his party values Washington's support for the Irish peace process.

"We in Sinn Fein have many good friends in the USA, with this president (George W. Bush) and former president Bill Clinton," Adams said.

Tribute to hunger strikers

Earlier on Monday, he laid a wreath to Cuba's 19th century independence hero Jose Marti in Havana's Revolution Square and praised the social achievements of four decades of socialism on the island of 11 million inhabitants.

The government of President Fidel Castro is often hailed for its free health and education policies, but critics say his one-party political system tramples on freedom of expression and jails dissidents for peaceful opposition work.

Castro showed off Cuba's education system to Adams on Monday night, escorting the Northern Ireland leader to the reopening of a newly reconstructed school.

State television showed a relaxed, smiling Adams in his shirt sleeves, seated in a folding chair in the front row of an outdoor assembly of schoolchildren. Castro extolled the successes of his country's schools during the evening ceremony, which was closed to the international press based in Havana.

Adams wants to thank Castro for his backing of Sinn Fein's struggle for a united Ireland without British rule, and especially for his support during a 1981 Irish republican hunger strike by prisoners seeking political status.

Adams unveiled a plaque in Havana on Tuesday to the hunger strikers, 10 of whom -- including MP Bobby Sands -- died in the 1981 protest.