Colombia cuts diplomatic ties with Cuba

Press, 25 March 1981, Page 8

Colombia cuts diplomatic ties with Cuba

NZPA-Reuter Bogota,. Colombia

Colombia yesterday suspended diplomatic relations with Cuba accusing it of training anti-Gbvemment Colombian guerrillas. President Cesar Turbay Ayala ’ said in a prerecorded address that Colombia, “for reasons which do not involve the Cuban Government’s ideology but its hostile conduct, is forced to suspend its relations with the Government of President Fidel Castro.”

Mr Turbay said that Cuba had provided arms and training, for a. group of guerrillas of the Leftist Ml 9 group which secretly entered Colombia two weeks ago. r: The President said Colombia had recalled its diplomats from Havana and ordered Cuban diplomats to leave Colombia.

A teenage guerrilla among a group of'7s Ml 9 men captured in a .big Army sweep told journalists last week that he . and 69 other-insur-gents received three months’ military training in Cuba be-

fore flying to Panama and sailing to Colombia’s Pacific coast.

President Turbay said a huge arms. cache seized by the Army was traced to Havana after the' young guerrilla’s confessions. “This is an unfriendly gesture towards Colombia . . .

(which) indicates that, deplorably, Cuba has again violated its international obligations to refrain from intervening in the internal affairs of our country,” he added.

Colombia and Cuba restored diplomatic links in 1975 after a 15-year riftunder sanctions imposed by the Organisation of . American States against the Havana Government. The O.A.S. alleged Cuba supported armed subversion in the South American continent. The United States has recently been denouncing Cuba for its involvement in the war in FI .SlalvaHnr in.

Central America and in,-sub-versive activities elsewhere in Central and South America. The Reagan Administration has said it will ’ cut off the arm flow from Cuba “at its source” though officials have declined to say what methods, military or other, they would use. '|-