Cuba has launched a Web site to refute US charges that it sponsors terrorism and to seek support in the United States for the release of five Cubans imprisoned there for spying.
Answering questions on the site, the head of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, said Cuba was cooperating with its longtime foe, the United States, on countering international terrorism since the September 11th, 2001, attacks.
"We are doing everything we can," he said, citing the opening of Cuban airspace to diverted air traffic the day of the attacks and accepting without protest the use of the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay as a detention camp for prisoners from Afghanistan.
"We have made the proposal, and we stand by it, for bilateral cooperation in the struggle against terrorism," said Alarcon, President Fidel Castro's point man on relations with Washington.
"We have presented other proposals through the diplomatic channel," he added, without giving details. So far, Washington had refused even to consider the Cuban proposals, he said.
The Bush administration has kept Cuba on Washington's list of states that sponsor terrorism, along with Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria and Sudan, arguing it provides a haven for the Basque separatist group ETA and supports Colombian guerrillas.
Havana denies the charge and accuses US authorities of tolerating exile groups in Miami it says were behind attacks on Cuba, including the downing of a Cuban airliner off Barbados in 1976 and a series of blasts in Havana hotels.
The Web site www.antiterroristas.cupublished an interview with American intellectual Noam Chomsky, who criticised his country for using the term "terrorism" only for acts of violence committed against the United States.
The site seeks to gather support among Americans for the freeing of five Cubans convicted in the United States in June 2001 on conspiracy and espionage charges. Three were sentenced to life imprisonment and the others are serving 15 and 19 years in prison.
The National Lawyers Guild, a New York-based lawyers group, launched a campaign on Tuesday to win support for the five, who are appealing their convictions before the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
The lawyers, who joined Alarcon in a videoconference for the launching of the Web site, said the Cubans' trial had been tainted by Miami exile politics and should have been moved elsewhere.
The five men were convicted as part of a spy ring called the Wasp Network that infiltrated US military bases and Cuban exile groups and fed information back to Havana.
The Castro government contends its five agents were working to thwart anti-Cuban terrorism it says US authorities have turned a blind eye to in Miami, the main centre of Cuban exiles.
"These five Cubans are in prison for fighting against Cuban exile terrorist groups that freely operate in Miami," Alarcon said.