Cuba wraps up defense exercises
HAVANA (AP) – Cubans awoke to air raid sirens Sunday and practiced shooting, putting on gas masks and doing duck-and-cover drills as the communist nation wrapped up a week of defense exercises to prepare for any possible attack by the United States. The activities, called the Strategic Bastion 2004 Exercise, were intended as an evaluation of how prepared Cuba is to face military attack during a second term by President Bush.
State-run newspapers reported Sunday that the exercises were a success and that Cuba’s “capacity to resist and overcome an imperialist aggression” was demonstrated.
Since even before the United States launched its unilateral attack on Iraq last year, Cuba has insisted that a similar U.S. strike on their country is possible.
American authorities have repeatedly rejected that idea, saying there are no plans to attack Cuba. Last week, the U.S. State Department said the large-scale exercises in Cuba were really to distract people from the hardships of their lives.
Cuban army troops, reserves and militia spent the week firing rockets, launching grenades and practicing drills with civilians. Soldiers put up barricades in Havana neighborhoods as fighter jets flew overhead.
Thousands of Cubans took to the streets, taking their prearranged places under the doctrine of “The Peoples’ War,” in which every citizen, young and old, participates in the defense of the country.
Children were sent to schools early Sunday to practice duck-and-cover drills. Civilians performed shooting exercises in makeshift ranges as well as conducted first aid drills and putting on gas masks. Factory workers ran for underground shelter during evacuation drills.
Work groups gathered to discuss how to guarantee food, water and health care for the population in the event of an attack, as well as to plan evacuations, arrange security for personal property and set up a system for getting information to civilians.
State media reported that a total of four million Cubans participated throughout the week in the exercise, which began Monday and was the biggest of its kind on the island in 18 years. International news organizations were not given official access.
Cubans from defense organizations that include much of the general population participated as well as defense forces of the Interior Ministry, which oversees internal security.
Defense Minister Raul Castro, who oversaw the operation, toured several sites to motivate participants.
“There are Cubans of every color, making up a precious rainbow, but all have the same language, purpose, ideal: that unity is our most powerful weapon,” Castro told civilians in Havana, according to Sunday’s edition of Juventud Rebelde, the Communist Party’s youth newspaper.