US-Cuba row over mission blackout

The US mission in Havana is housed in the old embassy building

US diplomats have accused the Cuban government of using bullying tactics, including cutting off the electricity to their mission in Havana.

The former embassy relied on generators for the past week and, the US says, receives mains water intermittently.

Many observers say relations between the two long-time ideological foes are as bad as they have been for decades.

Cuba, which said the US authorities were lying "shamelessly", has announced that the country's shortages are over.

In less than eight months conditions have been created that guarantee that there will be no blackouts in our country due to a lack of generating capacity Yadira Garcia, basic industry minister

Correspondents say blackouts have wreaked havoc on the economy since the collapse of Cuba's main benefactor, the Soviet Union, in 1991.

Basic Industry Minister Yadira Garcia told parliament on Saturday that hundreds of small power plants had been linked in to the electricity grid, making more power available for the summer peak period.

"In less than eight months conditions have been created that guarantee that there will be no blackouts in our country due to a lack of generating capacity," she said, quoted by Reuters news agency.

However, the minister did not rule out some continuing supply problems for other reasons.

'Bank of mercenaries'

The US diplomats say the power to their main building was cut off in the middle of the night on 5 June and repeated calls to the Cuban authorities asking them to restore the electricity went unanswered.

Electricity flowed again on Tuesday, they said.

"The lights came back on in the early afternoon," mission spokesman Drew Blakeney told Reuters.

A statement issued by the Interests Section described the electrical cut off as part of Cuba's "bullying tactics", which it said includes preventing diplomats from importing cars, and "intrusions" into their homes.

On Tuesday, an editorial in Cuba's main communist party newspaper, Granma, denied that power to the Interests Section had been deliberately cut, saying that recent bad weather had caused electrical problems in the area.

It described the mission as the "headquarters and bank of mercenaries" and suggested that the US was looking for a pretext to break off all the already minimal diplomatic ties with Cuba.

If that was the case, the editorial claimed, Cuba would not shed a tear.

The US mission in Havana is housed in the same building that was the US embassy before normal diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken in the early 1960s.

Interests Sections were established to handle consular and other activities in the late 1970s.