Madam, - On April 30th you published a letter from me which attempted to correct fundamental errors and misrepresentations in the international media about the recent trials of so-called dissidents in Cuba. On May 10th you published an report from Havana by Deaglán de Bréadún that repeated some of these errors and misrepresentations.
Let me repeat, "dissidents" who were fairly tried in Cuba were in fact mercenaries proved to be working for, and in the pay of, the US government, and whose aim was to destabilise and overthrow the Cuban government by illegal means. The trials had absolutely nothing to do with human rights but everything to do with the protection of Cuba's national sovereignty against external interference.
These mercenaries were not imprisoned on the basis of what are frequently referred to as trumped-up charges, but as a result of clear evidence that they were working with the chief US diplomat in Cuba, James Cason, with the aim of destroying the Cuban Revolution. The crime these mercenaries committed was to conspire with a foreign government to overthrow a democratically elected and populist state. To suggest otherwise is an utter distortion of fact and a perversion of the term human rights.
Highly clichéd, ill-informed and unbalanced reports do no service to good journalism. - Yours, etc.,
DOUGLAS HAMILTON, Belfast Co-ordinator, Cuba Support Group - Ireland, Lower Crescent, Belfast 7.