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CNN Live At Daybreak

Cuba's Cooperation May Signal New Phase in Relations With U.S.

Aired January 22, 2002 - 05:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And now let's take another look at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Cuban President Fidel Castro didn't put up a fuss about the United States using Guantanamo to hold detainees from the Afghanistan war. And that did surprise some people.

But CNN's Lucia Newman reports Cuba may have a political agenda of its own.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the outside looking in, Cuban soldiers in Guantanamo observe every movement inside the nearby U.S. Naval base.

For the past 40 years, they've kept a hawk's eye over what Cuba considers its sovereign territory, illegally occupied by the enemy, the United States. Yet to the disbelief of many, the coming and going of planes carrying Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners hasn't infuriated Cuba. On the contrary, it's being seized as a unique opportunity to make cooperation rather than confrontation, the new buzzword in U.S.- Cuban relations.

In a meeting with CNN, President Fidel Castro bent over backwards to explain that Havana is serious about fighting terrorism, even though Washington has refused to take Cuba off its list of nations that sponsor it.

"Cuba would never allow its territory to be used to launch any acts of terrorism against the United States or any other countries," said Castro.

Earlier, the president's younger brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, was asked in Guantanamo what he'd do if any al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners escaped into Cuba.

"They'd be captured and our government informed," he said. "Then I can tell you that we would hand them back to the Americans."

Cuba has also offered medical and sanitation services to the Guantanamo base. This. at a time when a revolving door of Congressmen, Senators, businessmen and other influential Americans have been visiting Cuba, almost all of them anxious to begin normalizing relations with the only communist nation in the hemisphere.

RICARDO ALARCON, PRESIDENT, CUBAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY: What should happen is that those strength would grow, they would expand and that may help bring in a change in the not too distant future.

NEWMAN: And that seems to be the plan.

(on camera): First, cooperation with Guantanamo. Then drug interdiction. And then what Cuba wants most, trade and tourism from the United States, an ambitious push to try and change more than just the tone of relations with Washington.

Lucia Newman, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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