Briefly

CUBA

U.N. probe urged for Guantanamo inmates

HAVANA — Cuba has asked the European Union and other countries to demand an investigation into how the United States treats Taliban prisoners at its Guantanamo Naval Base in southeast Cuba.

Last week, in a resolution modeled after one passed by the European Parliament, Cuba asked the U.N. Human Rights Commission to examine the legality of the detention at the U.S. naval base of several hundred Taliban combatants captured in Afghanistan, according to a broadcast by AIN, Cuba’s National Information Agency, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp.

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing two appeals today that question whether hundreds of the prisoners being detained without trial or legal representation are being held lawfully.

VENEZUELA

Chavez threatens to halt U.S. oil sales

CARACAS — President Hugo Chavez threatened to stop selling oil to the United States if the Bush administration continues “intervening in Venezuela’s domestic affairs.” The United States is the biggest importer of Venezuelan oil, which supplies 15 percent of U.S. consumption.

“In Bush’s case, he should cease the madness of directly intervening in Venezuela’s internal affairs. That would spark a conflict here, and it would be absurd to continue selling oil to them,” Mr. Chavez told the Italian newspaper Liberazione.

Mr. Chavez accused the United States of being behind a failed April 2002 coup against him and of sponsoring current efforts to overthrow his leftist government. He had previously threatened to stop selling oil to the United States if it invaded or blockaded Venezuela.

PERU

Shining Path rebel issues demands

LIMA — A man saying he is one of the last original leaders of the Shining Path guerrillas still at large threatened to renew violence if the government does not negotiate amnesty for its jailed leaders.

Ski-masked rebel leader “Artemio,” backed by about 40 fighters, spoke with reporters in an interview taped in the Peruvian jungle and aired Sunday night on the TV news show “Cuarto Poder.”

In the footage, Artemio threatened “renewal of armed activities,” which he specified as propaganda, sabotage and assassinations. Shining Path conducted a violent campaign of car bombings, political assassinations and massacres in 1980, but its activity reduced sharply after the 1992 capture of founder Abimael Guzman.

Weekly notes …

The entire 75-man crew of the Gloria, the Colombian navy’s flagship, has been suspended after nearly 60 pounds of illegal cocaine and heroin were discovered in its engine room. The find is a slap to Colombian pride, comparable only to the discovery of drugs aboard the president’s airplane in September 1996. A statement from the office of President Alvaro Uribe said: “The government considers that exemplary decisions must be taken to prevent members of the armed forces continue staining the honor of the motherland.” … Haiti’s new U.S.-backed leader said Sunday he had dropped a “ridiculous” demand by ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for France to return $22 billion he said the Caribbean nation was forced to pay its colonial masters after gaining independence in 1804. “This claim was illegal, ridiculous and was made only for political reasons,” Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, an economist and longtime exile in Florida, told Reuters, saying Haiti has no interest in maintaining an atmosphere of confrontation with France.

From staff reports and wire dispatches