HAVANA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - A senior Cuban official on Saturday denounced the United States as ``a dictatorship, a totalitarian regime'' and he accused it of trying to maintain secret new legislation hostile to the interests of Cuba and other nations.
Interviewed on state television, Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, said a massive budget bill approved by the U.S. Congress last month contained ``subversive'' provisions aimed at his country and others.
Alarcon said the U.S. authorities were keeping the full text of the budget law a secret. He condemned this as ``the denial of the idea of democratic debate, of open examination.''
``That's the reality, that the so-called U.S. democracy is in fact a dictatorship, a totalitarian regime, which employs a lot of resources to create the opposite image,'' he said.
Cuba's one-party communist system led by long-ruling President Fidel Castro is frequently criticised as a totalitarian dictatorship by the U.S. government, which maintains a long-standing economic embargo against the island.
Other foreign governments like Canada and the members of the European Union (EU) have also openly chided Cuba for its persecution of political dissidents and have called on President Castro to introduce democratic reforms.
Alarcon said the latest U.S. budget bill provided funding for ``subversive'' U.S. radio and TV broadcasts against Cuba and also against other parts of the world, for example Africa.
This was a reference to U.S. government-financed broadcasting like Radio and TV Marti, which transmit anti- communist programmes directly toward the Caribbean island.
Alarcon also denounced what he said was a funding provision in the bill of at least $2 million ``to promote subversion inside Cuba, to pay people, to bribe individuals to create a supposed opposition against the Revolution.''
This appeared to be a reference to funding that U.S. officials said was for use by the U.S. State Department to aid non-government organisations operating in the United States, such as Freedom House, that seek to promote democracy in Cuba.
Havana says these U.S. organisations directly finance and support anti-government dissidents in Cuba.
Alarcon said the U.S. budget bill also included an amendment that sought to apply globally a clause of the 1996 Helms-Burton law against Cuba. The clause, known as Title 4, threatens to bar entry to the United States to anyone who invests in expropriated, formerly U.S.-owned property.
The Cuban official contrasted these new provisions against Cuba with current moves by some U.S. Congress members and former senior administration officials to seek a change in U.S. policy toward the island.
He said the U.S. budget law also contained elements hostile to other nations, including Russia and other ex-Soviet Republics, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Vietnam.
He urged other governments to try to discover the full contents of the bill, which he said ``affects the whole world.''
15:35 11-14-98
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