Red Cross probes ambulance use

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

The International Committee of the Red Cross is investigating a complaint that Cuban police used a red cross-marked ambulance to haul away an anti-Castro protester during Pope John Paul II's Mass in Havana, European sources say.

While the Jan. 25 incident may not be improper, the Swiss-based Red Cross wants to protect its image of neutrality as the United States and other nations consider stepping up humanitarian aid to Cuba, the sources added.

International Red Cross officials at headquarters in Geneva declined to comment, but European activists close to its work said the agency had sent one staffer to Havana to discreetly investigate the incident.

Cubans have said they witnessed several security agents approach a young man who was loudly criticizing President Fidel Castro during the papal Mass and tell him, ``Didn't you hear Fidel say that we should be silent?''

The man replied he was doing nothing wrong, but a Cuban Red Cross ambulance soon arrived, and four burly men wearing Red Cross vests took the young man away, the witnesses said.

Run by government

Unlike many local Red Cross agencies around the world, which are independent, the Cuban Red Cross is run by the Public Health Ministry. The International Red Cross is the parent organization, known for its neutrality through war and famine.

Humanitarian aid agencies in Europe are eager to clarify the Havana incident, because the ICRC alone might receive permission to visit jails in Cuba and gather complaints from political prisoners.

Although the ICRC has traditionally been allowed to inspect prisons around the world and carry mail for inmates, Cuba stopped allowing ICRC inspections of its prisons in 1990.

Cuban human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said Monday he knew nothing of an ICRC investigation, although he also had received complaints of police abuse of the Red Cross symbol during the papal Mass.

``We are trying to document all this still, but it does seem that at least one person who was criticizing the government at the Mass was taken away in a Red Cross ambulance,'' he said in a telephone interview.

Legitimate presence

Sanchez said the government might argue that the use of the ambulance during the papal Mass was legitimate, ``if it was a case of hysteria, maybe someone going through shock because of the emotion.''

``But we have received nothing alarming, nothing on the systematic use of Red Cross vehicles or personnel against critics,'' he added.

Because the Cuban Red Cross is government-run, Sanchez noted, all ambulances and medical vehicles on the island carry the squarish red cross symbol recognized around the world as a sign of neutrality.

``In fact then, when prisoners are transported from or to any hospital or any clinic for medical treatment, they must be taken in ambulances with the red cross,'' he said.

Sanchez said he recalled only one other potentially improper use of the red cross symbol, on an ambulance that took him from prison to a hospital for surgery sometime in the 1980s.

``It was an ambulance from the Ministry of Interior, driven by uniformed ministry personnel,'' he recalled. The Interior Ministry is in charge of Cuba's domestic security.

It was a French-manufactured vehicle, Sanchez recalled, apparently donated by a foreign pro-Castro group.