SeeingRed

SIXTH: The Guantanamo Naval Base, set up in Cuba almost a hundred years ago following a confusing and treacherously drafted agreement by virtue of which the United States leased the territory occupied by the base "for the time required", without a clause safeguarding our full right to sovereignty over the said territory, has been used by the United States as an instrument of its aggressive policy against our country.

After the triumph of the Revolution, the United States military authorities and special agencies immediately offered protection in this enclave to nearly a thousand murderers and henchmen of Batista's regime. The base was turned into an active center of subversion and provocation against our country.

Numerous mercenaries and fugitives from Cuban justice for their crimes and misdeeds found sanctuary and impunity there. Numerous people, encouraged by the privilege of entering the United States without a visa, chose to leave the country illegally through that military facility kept in Cuba by force.

It has been a safe haven for despicable traitors who went there in hijacked aircraft and boats, and in no case have these criminals been extradited which became common practice after the triumph of the Revolution. Article 2 of the aforementioned Agreement, signed on February 16, 1903, gave the United States a certain right, under certain conditions that it accepted and committed itself to honor, "to do any and all things necessary to fit the premises for use as coaling or naval stations only, and for no other purpose."

Article 4 of the Supplementary Agreement of July 2, 1903, also signed by the governments of Cuba and the United States, set forth in precise and clear terms that: "Fugitives from justice charged with crimes or misdemeanors amenable to Cuban law, taking refuge within said areas, shall be delivered up by the United States authorities on demand by duly authorized Cuban authorities."

It is unjustifiable that a costly military base, kept at the expense of the United States budget and taxpayers despite it being absolutely useless to the United States national security, should occupy a valuable part of our territory just to humiliate, harass and attack the Cuban people, its sole mission in the past decades.

It has been particularly arbitrary and abusive to keep that military enclave against the will of our people after the end of the cold war, especially when the United States government is dismantling dozens of facilities on its territory and abroad to reduce its military budget. Ninety six years after that commitment was entered by both parties under Article 1 of the February 1903 Agreement, signed by the United States government and a weak and compliant government lacking foresight which leased the land to the United States "for the time required", it is evident that the United States has not needed such land for a long time now for anything other than its aggressive policy against Cuba, a right not included even in that ominous agreement. It is not fair that one of Cuba's best bay areas is used for that purpose. Between 1962 and 1994 --this year both governments, on their own initiative, agreed to take measures to reduce the risks of incidents, after the migratory agreement had been signed by Cuba and the United States of America-- a total of 13,498 acts of provocation originated in the base. The most common of these included offensive language, obscene gestures and pornographic scenes, violations of the dividing line by breaking parts of the fence and, in other cases, by crossing the line into free territory; the illumination of the Cuban soldiers' sentry boxes with searchlights, the shooting of firearms, the threatening pointing of guns, tanks and machine-guns against our staff and facilities; repeated violations of Cuban airspace, including the landing of helicopters outside the base perimeter, as well as, violations of our territorial waters.

The Cuban revolutionary government has presented numerous official notes to the United States government protesting these incidents but, in the vast majority of cases, there has not been a reply that is in accordance with international law. Cuba has also made multiple denunciations in international agencies and many foreign journalists have visited the border perimeter, interviewed witnesses, learned of and obtained evidence about the denounced violations. For more than thirty years, Cuba has submitted evidence of such acts of aggression and not one U.S. administration has ever apologized. On the other hand, the United States cannot show a single case of a Cuban provocation, violation or penetration in the territory arbitrarily occupied by its troops.

Cuban soldiers of the Border Patrol and citizens of our country have been killed or wounded from the territory of the base or in the base itself, namely:

In January 5, 1961, worker Manuel Prieto Gomez, who was one of the few Cubans to keep his job there and who had worked in that facility for thirteen years, was savagely tortured at the Guantanamo Naval Base;

In September 30, 1961, Marine Captain Arthur J. Jackson arrested another Cuban --Ruben Lopez Sabariego-- who was working there as a freight truck driver. Fifteen days after his arrest, the chargé d'affaires of the Swiss embassy in Cuba reported that a dead body had been found in a ditch inside the military facility. The autopsy showed that the man had been dead for several days and had broken bones and bruises caused by torture; In May 1962, Rodolfo Rosell Salas was kidnapped by naval base staff while he was working as a fisherman. He was murdered and his corpse was found on July 14;

In July 18, 1964, Border Battalion soldier Ramon Lopez Peña was killed by shots fired from the base by an American soldier on guard duty in the position situated at co-ordinates 43-67;

In May 21, 1966, Private Luis Ramirez Lopez was also murdered by shots fired by American soldiers from Guantanamo Naval Base. As a result of aggressions originated in the Naval base, a total of 8 Cubans have died and 15 others have been left incapacitated. This is accredited with the corresponding certificates in annexed documents marked with the numbers 20 and 21.

In addition, great injustices were made with the thousands of Cubans who worked in the Naval base. In January 1964, over 3,000 Cubans worked in that base, of which approximately 2,300 were admitted to get in and out of the base every day. Between February 10 and 15, 500 of said workers were fired on orders from the United States government, all at once. Between February and October 1,060 others were also fired, for a total of 1,560, that is, two thirds in only seven months; and so it continued until less than 100 workers were allowed to keep their jobs there.

Another cruel measure: on March 5, 1966, the U.S. Defense Department informed that the policy of its government "would not allow the payment of pensions to any personnel in Cuba", therefore, those who had been fired could neither receive a pension nor claim the return of their contributions to the pensioners' fund held by the U.S. government. Thus, the Cuban workers in that base were left with the choice of applying for asylum or loosing their jobs and every other right therein.

Presently, there remain only 17 Cuban workers at the base who are admitted there every day to that facility.

SEVENTH: That, in all these years of Revolution, the United States government aggressive actions have had a significant impact on our people's health. This criminal policy has been aimed at obstructing and hindering the impressive achievements that Cuban social policy has won. For this purpose, the United States has used, among others, the biological aggression which has cost precious human lives, including children and pregnant women.

On May 1981, at the Boyeros municipality in the Cuban capital, reports began of people sick with fever, ocular, abdominal and muscular pains, rashes, cephalalgia and asthenia frequently accompanied by multiple bleeding with different degrees of severity. A few days later, there was an outbreak of similar cases in the provinces of Cienfuegos, Holguin and Villa Clara, by then rapidly extending to the rest of the country.

The initial studies demonstrated that the first cases had appeared simultaneously in three places on the island at a distance of more than 300 kilometers one from the other. There was no epidemiological explanation that would allow to interpret these incidents as a natural infection.

Laboratory studies confirmed that the etiological agent was the dengue type 2 virus. The fact that the virus showed up unexpectedly, when no dengue-2 epidemic activity had been reported in the American continent or in any country with which Cuba had a significant exchange of personnel, as well as, its simultaneous appearance in different regions of the country are elements that back up the studies carried out by Cuban scientists of acknowledged prestige, with the co-operation of foreign scientists highly specialized in detecting and fighting biological aggression.

The exhaustive research and studies carried out led to the evidence that the epidemic was deliberately introduced in the national territory by agents at the service of the U.S. government. American experts in biological warfare had been the only ones who had obtained a variety of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, very much associated with the transmission of the type 2 dengue virus, according to a statement by Colonel Phillip Russell in the 14th International Congress on the Pacific Ocean, held in 1979, only two years before the outbreak of the brutal epidemic in Cuba.

It is significant that, in 1975 American scientist Charles Henry Calisher, on a visit to Cuba took an interest in, and obtained information on, the existence of antibodies to dengue in the Cuban population and the non-existence in the population, in at least 45 years, of antibodies for the type 2 dengue virus.

In the trial held in the United States in 1984 against Eduardo Arocena, a ringleader of the terrorist organization Omega-7, he publicly confessed to having introduced germs into Cuba and admitted that hemorrhagic dengue fever had been introduced in the island through related groups of Cuban origin, based in the United States.

Whether or not the confession is true made by the leader of the well-known terrorist organization Omega 7 about the groups used to introduce hemorrhagic dengue fever in Cuba, we have exhaustively explained and demonstrated here who those groups were, who organized them and in whose service they were acting.

Furthermore, the U.S. army had reported the existence of a vaccine that included protection against dengue-2 which was applied to the population inside Guantanamo Naval Base. Of course, not a single case affected by the disease was recorded in that military enclave while the epidemic hit the rest of the island's territory without exception.

From November 18 to 20 and on December 2, 9, 18 and 19, 1969, during the 91st U.S. Congress, a hearing was held to analyze alleged plans concerning the use of biological warfare against Cuba.

The following dialogue took place in that session: Mr. Fraser: "It has been said the United States was prepared to use biological agents with regard to the invasion of Cuba. Can you tell us whether that is true?

Mr. Pickering: I just have no knowledge of that.

Mr. Fraser: Has anyone here any information on that question? (No response.)

Mr. Pickering: I have seen the discussions of this subject in the press."

Mr. McCarthy: I would say the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is familiar with the incidents alluded to and there are people in the Government who know what the record is, present and past. I know the information is available in your records."

The use of insects to transmit diseases has been carefully studied in Fort Detrick. A journalist reported that the insect inventory at Fort Detrick in 1959 included mosquitoes infected with yellow fever, malaria and dengue; fleas infected with plague; ticks with tularemia, relapsing fever and Colorado fever; and houseflies infected with cholera, anthrax and dysentery. According to data released by the United States army some 20 years ago, on July 1958, the Center for Bacteriological Weapons of the US Ground Forces conducted experiments with Aedes aegypti mosquitoes which carried yellow fever. These experiments were carried out on a landing ground in the state of Florida. The swarm of mosquitoes --not infected, of course-- and made up of approximately 600,000 specimens was dispersed over the landing ground from a plane. The results of the research showed that, in one day, the mosquitoes could reach distances of 1.6 to 3.2 kilometers and bit many people and that the Aedes aegypti had great potential to carry yellow fever over long distances.

On October 29, 1980, a press dispatch from Washington reported that "The US government seriously considered using yellow-fever mosquitoes against the Soviet Union in 1956.

"Declassified military documents released today state that the US Army considered using Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to spread yellow fever inside the USSR."

"At Fort Detrick, Maryland, experiments are being carried out with millions of yellow-fever mosquitoes. These laboratories can produce half a million mosquitoes every month, and work on a new plant designed by the Army, with a capacity for 130 million mosquitoes a month, is about to begin." "The declassified documents assert that the possible aggression against the USSR is based on the Soviet Union's inability to implement a program of massive immunization against such a mosquito attack."

This was the case with a great power, located at a great distance and in a vast territory, with which the United States was not at war. However, it toyed with the idea of silent biological sabotage.

The following may serve as a background to explain what happened in Cuba. The Miami Herald newspaper, which cannot be suspected of friendliness toward Cuba, published on September 1st, 1981 an article which read:

"WASHINGTON. The pompous statement by Fidel Castro that the 'harmful plagues' that are destroying crops and animals in Cuba and the dengue fever epidemic that has brought about the death of over 100 people in the island are the doings of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) does not seem inconceivable to the authors of a new book that shall be put out this autumn. "William W. Turner, former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and journalist Warren Hinckle, state that the United States used biological warfare against Cuba during the Nixon administration.

"The authors argue that the CIA has committed the United States to a secret, undeclared and illegal war against Cuba for more than twenty years. The so-called Cuban Project is the largest and least known operated by the CIA outside the legal limits of its statutes, they say. "The history of the Cuban Project is the history of an important US war not declared by Congress, not acknowledged by Washington, and not reported in the press."

Before that, a UPI cable dated in Washington on January 9, 1977 reported the following:

"Newsday, a Long Island (New York) newspaper said that at least with the tacit support of the CIA, agents related to anti-Castro terrorists introduced the African swine fever virus in Cuba in 1971.

"Six weeks later, an outbreak of the disease forced Cuban sanitary authorities to sacrifice 500,000 pigs in order to avoid an animal epidemic of national proportions.

"An unidentified source of the CIA revealed to Newsday that at the beginning of 1971 he was given a container with virus at Fort Gulick, a US Army base situated in the Panama Canal Zone also used by the CIA, and that the container had been taken on a fishing boat by underground agents in Cuba. "It was the first time the disease appeared in the Western Hemisphere. "It is known, through their own admission, that when the African swine fever broke out in Cuba, the CIA and the US Army were experimenting with poisons, deadly toxins, products to destroy crops and other techniques of bacteriological warfare."

There is a mountain of evidence, background information and facts that cannot possibly be ignored.

What is beyond question is that, in just a few weeks, the hemorrhagic dengue epidemic in Cuba --where it had never existed-- had affected a total of 344,203 people, a figure with no known precedent in any other country of the world. There was another truly record case when 11,400 new patients were reported in a single day on July 6, 1981.

A total of 116,143 cases were hospitalized. About 24,000 patients suffered from hemorrhaging and 10,224 suffered some degree of dengue-induced shock. One hundred and fifty-eight people died as a result of the epidemic, including 101 children.

The whole country and all its resources were mobilized to fight the epidemic. The vector's presence was strongly and simultaneously controlled in all of Cuba's towns and cities, using all possible means and with products and equipment urgently bought from anywhere, including the United States. A request was made to the United States through the Pan-American Health Organization and finally, in the month of August, an important larvicide could be bought. Chemicals and equipment were brought in, often by plane and sometimes from countries as far away as Japan, whose factories sold Cuba thousands of individual motor fumigators. Malathion had to be brought from Europe at a transportation fee of 5,000 dollars a ton, that is, three and a half times the cost of the product.

In addition to the existing hospital network, dozens of boarding schools were turned into hospitals in order to isolate every new patient reported, without exception. At the same time, intensive-care units were built and equipped in all of the country's children hospitals.

This is how the last infected case was reported on October 10, 1981. If it had not been for this enormous effort, tens of thousands of people, the vast majority of them children, would have died. An epidemic that many experts had forecast would take years to eradicate was defeated in little more than four months. The adverse economic impact was also considerable. The list of the dead as a result of the epidemic is authenticated through the corresponding certifications issued by the Ministry of Public Health, and attached as document number 22."

EIGHTH: That, throughout the Cuban revolutionary process, a strictly internal affair which our people carried out exercising their right to full sovereignty as citizens of an independent nation, our homeland has had to face, and still does, the constant danger of a direct military aggression from the United States.

One of the first meetings of the Cuban Project task force, reported in a memorandum drafted by the CIA director on January 19, 1962, was especially significant. The meeting was held exactly nine months after the crushing defeat --in less than 72 hours-- and the capture of the entire expeditionary force that landed at the Bay of Pigs, within sight of the United States fleet in stand off three miles from the Bay of Pigs on April 19, 1961.

The fleet's presence and encouragement was of no use to the mercenary troops. It did not even have time to act and there was nobody to rescue when, at the end of the adventure, President Kennedy had been persuaded to give the invaders air cover by using the fighter planes on board the Essex aircraft-carrier, which was in the naval detachment. According to a declassified document on the meeting that took place that day, Robert Kennedy, the U.S. government attorney general said to those in attendance that the President considered that the last chapter on Cuba had yet to be written, that Castro's overthrow was possible and that carrying out that objective was of utmost priority. The document stated: "The solution to the Cuban problem today carries the top priority in the United States Government. All else is secondary."

On March 7, 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated in a secret document: "...determination that a credible internal revolt is impossible of attainment during the next 9-10 months will require a decision by the United States to develop a Cuban 'provocation' as justification for positive U.S. military action."

On March 9, 1962, under the title "Pretexts to Justify U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba", the Office of the Secretary of Defense submitted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff a package of harassment measures aimed at creating conditions to justify a military intervention in Cuba. The measures considered included the following:

"A series of well coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around Guantanamo [Naval base] to give a genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces."

"The United States would respond by executing offensive operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying artillery and mortar emplacements threatening the base. Commence large-scale United States military operations.

"A 'Remember the Maine' incident could be arranged in several forms:

"We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.

"We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters.

"We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of a Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both.

"The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack.

"The US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by U.S. fighters to 'evacuate' remaining members of the non-existent crew.

"Casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.

"We could develop a Communist-Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States.

"We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated).

"We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized.

"Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement would also be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.

"A 'Cuban-based, Castro-supported' filibuster could be simulated against a neighboring Caribbean nation.

"Use of MIG-type aircraft by U.S. pilots could provide additional provocation.

"Harassment of civil aircraft, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of U.S. military drone aircraft by MIG-type planes would be useful as complementary actions.

"An F-86 properly painted would convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban MIG, especially if the pilot of the transport were to announce such fact.

"Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft should appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the government of Cuba.

"It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner en route from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela.

"The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight.

"It is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist-Cuban MIGs have destroyed a U.S.A.F. aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack." Five months later, in August 1962, General Maxwell D. Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed to President Kennedy that no possibility was perceived whereby the Cuban government could be overthrown without direct U.S. military intervention, which was why the Special Group-Augmented was recommending the even more aggressive approach of Operation Mongoose. Kennedy authorized its implementation: "It's a matter of urgency." These plans to invade Cuba which were hatched in early 1962, and of which highly plausible news reached the governments of the Soviet Union and of Cuba, determined the coordinated decision by both countries to urgently install the strategic missiles whose presence gave rise to the October Crisis [Cuban Missile Crisis] that same year. Today, in view of the confessed and proven facts, nobody would have any right to doubt about who, in their obsession against the Cuban revolution, were responsible for the world having been on the verge of a thermonuclear war.

NINTH: The undeniable reality, proven by facts and documents that nobody would dare challenge, explains the huge expenditures in economic and human resources and the sacrifices imposed on our people over 40 years to defend themselves from the danger of a direct armed aggression by the United States of America.

Cuba's defense needs do not compare with those of any other country in the world. This imposed the unavoidably inordinate scale of the people's preparation to ensure their own survival.

The basic idea has been to prevent war by maintaining and developing an armed-response potential involving all the people and a doctrine of struggle against a military invasion that would extract such a high price from the invaders as would discourage a direct aggression from the United States. For a long time, this activity has required, and received, top priority. In the past few years, it has been possible to reduce the regular troops thanks precisely to that concept, despite the marked increase in the hostility against Cuba in the past few decades. Notwithstanding the significant savings that this has meant, defense continues to be the country's main priority. The effort put into training millions of men and women every year and the maintenance of the people's fighting condition, the construction of expensive shelters and other fortifications to protect the civilian population and combatants --on which greater emphasis had to be put due to the rapid technological development achieved by the United States in the military field-- have required and continue to require considerable investment in human and material resources.

According to estimates, in the period from 1960 to 1998, we were forced into a particular over-manning in terms of the number of defense-related personnel. Internationally accepted parameters set out that a country's defense force should amount to around 0.4 percent of its population. Following this criterion, our country has been forced to go considerably beyond these parameters, as a result of the war situation imposed on us all these years. This imbalance in terms of personnel is estimated in about 4,362,645 mobilized troops, during that period, in excess of the internationally accepted parameters.

The situation described --an absolute anomaly for a small country of limited economic resources and a low demographic rate-- associated to a standing threat posed by the mightiest military power in the world, resulted in an enormous and extraordinary effort in the training of a fighting force made necessary by the United States aggressive policy which provoked the loss of 2,354 human lives and the disability of 1,833 people. These elements are properly documented in annexes 23 and 24.

The events hereby exposed have proven beyond doubt the civil liability of the government of the United States of America in the war that for forty years it has conducted against our nation, its institutions and organizations. Such extreme actions have forced the social and mass organizations that we represent in this process to wage an intense battle in every front, in the light of the multi-faceted aggressions carried out by a superpower. The United States has turned the so-called "Cuban issue" into a matter of domestic politics, the target of manipulations, scheming, deceitful posturing and personal and partisan ambitions. That nation's Congress adopts legislation of a marked extraterritorial and interfering nature, enacting regulations intended for acceptance by Cuba and the rest of the world, to support its intent to dominate our country.

Although these elements are not the factual grounds of our demand, they have been recounted so that this Court can make a comprehensive evaluation of the scope of the damages described herein and, consequently, of the size of the requested compensation.

That, the present Demand is based on the following:

LEGAL GROUNDS

That, this Demand is instituted through Ordinary Proceeding bearing in mind that the amount claimed as reparation and compensation for damages exceeds that which is stipulated in Article 223.1 of the Law of Civil, Administrative y Labor Proceeding.

That, this demand falls under the jurisdiction of the Havana City Provincial People's Court by reason of its subject matter and because its economic content exceeds what is prescribed in Article 6.1 of the Law of Civil, Administrative y Labor Proceeding. Also, that this court is relevant by reason of its location and our implicit subordination to it, supported by Article 10.1, as it relates to Art. 8, both from the aforesaid Procedural Law.

That, this demand we are filing has been structured in compliance with the corresponding requisites set forth in Article 224, with the supporting documents proving the rational for our testimony accompanying the trial brief as stipulated in Article 226, as well as, the documents where we explain the rights we are pleading pursuant to provisions in Article 227. That, the corresponding copies are attached to proceed to subpoena the defendant according to Article 228; all these articles are contained in the Law of Civil, Administrative y Labor Proceeding.

That, by virtue of this demand, the defendant shall be subpoenaed through a Rogatory Commission, a procedure to be effected through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba in compliance with provisions in Article 229 and 230, related to Article 170, all of them contained in the Law of Civil Procedure.

That, in accordance with the concrete pretensions of this demand, the ruling pronounced in due course shall be consistent with the petition of penalty, as supported by Article 146 of the above mentioned Procedural Law. That, those people whose names have been listed in the introduction to this demand are legitimately entitled to promote this process in their capacity as president, national coordinator or secretary general, as appropriate, on behalf of the legal entities they represent since they hold top positions in said organizations which represent the specific interests of their membership as stipulated in those organizations' own rules, all this pursuant to provisions in Articles 39.1 and 2.c, 40, 41 and 42 of the Civil Code, as they relate to Article 64 of the Law of Civil, Administrative and Labor Proceeding and Article 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba.

That, the present demand is based on the violation of the civil rights of Cuban citizens, particularly the right to life and the right to physical integrity, acknowledged as rights inherent to the human person in Article 38 of the Civil Code, whose violation legitimizes a demand of reparation and compensation for damages caused, as prescribed in Section c) of the above mentioned Civil Code.

That, the concrete pretension derived from this demand is supported by subsection d) in Article 111 of the Civil Code, in as much as the breach of the said civil rights presupposes the non-contractual liability of the defendant, in its capacity as debtor, with regards to the obligation to compensate and make amends for the damages caused, as prescribed in the general principle of Law known as neminem laedere, which is imputed as violated.

That, the illegal action attributed to the debtor, in its capacity as defendant, entails causing damages to another and it is, at the same time, the source of a civil juridical relation and, more precisely, of an obligatory juridical relation whose content presupposes the release of benefits to compensate the author, a responsibility that in the light of the Cuban civil law is markedly objective as sustained in Article 81, related to Article 47, subsection c), 46, Section 3, and 82 of the Civil Code.

That, the content of the compensation for the civil liability includes, among others, reparation for material damages in payment for the value of the goods and that being, this time, goods of incalculable value and irreplaceable due to their very nature --such as human life and physical integrity-- a financial valuation and compensation is warranted in the amount requested in the principal of this demand as prescribed in Article 83, subsection b), related to Article 85, both in the Civil Code and reparation for the moral damages through public recanting by the offender, as established in Article 88 of the same legislation.

Likewise, the compensation would include reparation for damages caused in cases of death or disability, extensive to the sustaining of the family, an obligation that until now has been assumed by the Cuban society. Also, all the earnings which they failed to receive due to the absence of that family member and what it represents for the disabled in terms of the loss, or decrease, of his wages and the impossibility to fully reassume his social life due to physical deformities or sequels and thus his inability to work, as well as, all the expenses that the victims or their families had to incur in order to restore the physical and mental health of the injured, as provided in Article 86, subsections a), b), d) and e), as they relate to Article 87, subsection c) of the Civil Code.

That, because they took place inside the national territory of the Republic of Cuba, or in diplomatic missions, maritime vessels and aircraft registered in Cuba, or against people working abroad, or other cases with similar rights to protection, the Law that applies is the Cuban national law, as prescribed in Article 16 of the Civil Code.

That, the previously mentioned juridical rules covering the substantive order of the present demand should be interpreted and applied in accordance with the political, social and economic foundations of the Cuban state as expressed in Chapter 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba and prescribed in Article 2 of the Civil Code. That, the aforesaid rules of the Civil Code presently in force are applicable to the full content of the present demand since the obligatory juridical relations established under the previous legislation are still valid in as much as their effects, subsequent to the enforcement of the present Civil Code, are governed by their provisions, as stipulated by the Civil Code First Transitory Provision.

That, the representation of the signing attorneys is based on that which is prescribed in Article 414 of the Civil Code.

CONCRETE PRETENSION
That, pursuant to the concept of reparation for material damages, the Court would rule that the defendant, as a debtor with civil liability, is ordered to pay for the lives of the 3,478 people, being it impossible to replace them and their value incalculable, at a rate equal an average of 30 million U.S. dollars for each dead person, which amounts to a total of 104,340 million U.S. dollars, and that it shall pay for the value of the illegally impaired physical integrity of 2,099 people, also irreplaceable in integrum, at a rate equal an average of 15 million U.S. dollars for each incapacitated person, amounting to a total of 31,485 million U.S. dollars. That, pursuant to the concept of compensation for damages, as reparation for the fringe benefits that the Cuban society has had to assume, as well as, other earnings the victims and relatives have failed to receive due to the events related ut supra, it is ordered to pay 34,780 million U.S. dollars, equal to an average 10 million U.S. dollars for everyone of the deceased, and 10,495 million U.S. dollars, equal to 5 million U.S. dollars for every incapacitated person.

In accordance with the aforesaid, a ruling is requested as would demand only one payment for the sum of 181,100 million U.S. dollars.

Likewise, it is requested that, pursuant to our Statutory Law the defendant is urged to publicly recant for the moral damages caused to both, the relatives and the victims of the events exposed in this claim.

That, the demand we are submitting for the value of the lives of 3,478 Cubans dead and 2,099 incapacitated is substantially less than the amount fixed by Mr. Lawrence King, Civil Judge in Florida's South District, who in the trials number 96-10126, 96-10127 and 96-10128 sentenced the Republic of Cuba to pay 187,627,911 U.S. dollars for the death of pilots Armando Alejandre, Carlos Alberto Costa and Mario M. De la Pena in the incident provoked by the countless violations of the Cuban air space repeated for years, thus demanding an average of 62, 542,637 U.S. dollars for each dead man. Such figure derives from the summation of a compensation for two concepts:

compensatory damages and punitive damages, in compliance with their laws, which can be compared with the average 40 million U.S. dollars for each dead person that the Cuban people demand also based on two concepts: reparation for material damages and compensation for damages, in compliance with our laws.

Had we resorted to the same basis for calculation as were used by Judge Lawrence King, our demand would amount to 217,523 million U.S. dollars, that is, 78,403 million U.S. dollars in excess of our present claim.

THEREFORE

WE REQUEST FROM THE COURT: To accept this complaint as duly submitted, accompanied by its copies and the documents justifying the representation and the right we invoke, and consequently to consider as instituted this Demand in Ordinary Proceeding on Compensation for Damages. Also, to consider the Government of the United States of America as the defendant and to have it subpoenaed within the legally established time-limit through a Rogatory Commission, for it to appear and respond what it considers pertinent and, after the realization of the other proceedings, to pronounce its ruling in due course announcing that this demand stands accepted and issuing a sentence in the manner requested in our Demand.

IN ADDITION: We appeal to this Court so that, pursuant to provisions in Article 170 of the Law of Civil, Administrative y Labor Proceeding, instructions are given to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba to proceed to subpoena the defendant.

Havana City, May 31, 1999

Mr.Juan Mendoza Diaz, Attorney Mr.Leonardo B.Perez Gallardo, Attorney Mrs.Magaly Iserne Carrillo, Attorney Mrs.Ivonne Perez Gutierrez, Attorney

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Source: National Information Agency (AIN)