The NUJ is one of 25 trade unions supporting the publication of a special "Hands off Cuba!" edition of CubaSi, the newsletter of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

The publication has cross-party political support and contains articles by Northern Ireland Minister, Angela Smith MP, Shadow Sport Minister, Colin Moynihan, and Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland, Alistair Carmichael.

The CSC is concerned that recent US polices and comments, including declaring Cuba to be part of an extended "Axis of Evil", may be the precursors to a military invasion of the island.

In 2002, US Undersecretary of State, John Bolton, claimed that Cuba had a biological weapons programme - a claim that was rejected by, among others, former US President Jimmy Carter, who visited Cuba shortly afterwards.

However, in declaring a tougher stance on Cuba recently, President George W Bush said: "The Castro regime will not change by its own choice - but Cuba must change."

The CSC, to which the NUJ is affiliated, exists to defend Cuba and its peoples' right to self-determination and national sovereignty without outside interference. It also promotes understanding of Cuba and campaigns against the illegal trade blockade, which has been enforced by the USA for more than 40 years.

The NUJ General Secretary, Jeremy Dear, says in Cuba Si: "Cuba has extended practical solidarity to countries in need ever since the revolution of 1959, such as in Algeria's liberation struggle, in Angola during the apartheid era, or sending doctors to areas of need in dozens of countries to this day.

"Trade unionists must continue to extend that same solidarity to Cuba in the face of threats to its sovereignty and independence."

Copies of CubaSi can be obtained from the CSC.

Tel: 0207 263 6452; Email: office@cuba-solidarity.org.uk

One of the major campaign issues of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign - and the Cuban regime - is that of the Miami Five.

These are five Cuban men - Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, René González and Fernando González - who were imprisoned for espionage after attempting to monitor anti-Castro terrorist groups based in Miami.

Miami is a haven for a number of terrorist organisations seeking to effect change in Cuba such as Alpha 66, Brothers to the Rescue, the Cuban American National Foundation and Omega 7. These groups have carried out a number of bombings, assassinations and other destabilising acts on Cuban and US soil.

US based Mafia factions that prospered before the revolution have also sought to destabilise the revolutionary government, allegedly with the support of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

The issue of US-Cuban tensions could not be properly considered without reference to one of the human rights issues of greatest concern to the world today.

The US Navy's Camp Delta (formerly known as Camp X-Ray) is located on 45 sq. miles of Cuban territory in Guantanamo Bay. This base of anomalous status dates back to the pre-revolution days of 1903 when US-friendly Cuban governments were happy to allow their powerful neighbour to use the island as a coaling station and military resource.

Fidel Castro called for the US withdrawal from the island in 1978 but, lacking the power or support to effect a removal, the revolutionary regime is powerless to exercise sovereignty over this piece of Cuban land.

The US position is that only they can decide when or if they should withdraw and that the Cuban government has no say in the matter:"[The] Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is leased to US and only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the area can terminate the lease".

Since the war in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay has been used to hold prisoners, including children, held without trial or respect to their rights under international law. The Bush administration has also taken advantage of a loophole in US law which does not recognise US judicial jurisdiction outwith US territories. Thus, it is claimed that the US Supreme Court would have no authority to rule on the status or legal rights of the detainees.

The US has also been guilty of misrepresenting the Geneva Conventions in declaring the detainees to be "unlawful combatants" in a bid to justify depriving the prisoners of their rights. The US authorities, have been widely condemned for their conduct in the matter.

An International Bar Association task force on international terrorism, led by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, and Emilio Cardenas, president of the IBA and Argentina's ambassador to the UN, recently published a report on the issue. The IBA said: "States cannot hold detainees, for which they are responsible, outside of the jurisdiction of all international courts."

Justice Goldstone said: "The law just doesn't accept black holes. If they're prisoners of war they've got rights under the Geneva Conventions. If they're civilians they've got rights under the domestic law of the US.

"It's unacceptable and inconsistent with the rule of law that you're holding 662 people without any access to due process. They're at the mercy of Pentagon officials."

The International Red Cross, the only independent group with access to the detainees, has reported a "worrying deterioration" in their mental health. Several prisoners have attempted to commit suicide.

Human Rights watch have also dismissed US attempts to reinterpret international law. HRW´s US Program Director, Jamie Fellner insists: "As a party to the Geneva Conventions, the United States is required to treat every detained combatant humanely, including unlawful combatants. The United States may not pick and choose among them to decide who is entitled to decent treatment."

The Geneva Conventions state that every captured fighter is entitled to humane treatment, understood at a minimum to include basic shelter, clothing, food and medical attention. Additionally, no detainee, - even if suspected of war crimes - may be subjected to corporal punishment, torture, or humiliating or degrading treatment. They are also entitled to certain guarantees of fairness in any trials.

Prisoners of war (as distinct from unlawful combatants) are entitled to additional protections. If there is any doubt about a captured fighters' status, the Geneva Conventions require that they be treated as POWs until a competent tribunal determines otherwise.

Detainees at the camp have been held in wire cages, have been shackled and blindfolded and subjected to mental, and possibly, physical torture.

In 1994, the US government used a temporary holding facility at Guantanamo Bay to hold refugees from Haiti and Cuba. At that time, permanent hard-walled shelters were provided.

As with many countries, Cuba does have unresolved human rights issues, the most pressing being the country's persistence with the judicial death penalty and the harsh line taken on political dissent and freedom of the press.

Earlier this year, 75 "dissidents" were imprisoned. CubaSi editor, Steve Wilikinson, argues that "these so-called dissidents were not jailed for expressing ideas or publishing papers, but for breaking Cuban laws that forbid collaboration with the United States, an enemy power bent on overthrowing the Cuban government."

However, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, both of which condemn the US blockade and cite both countries for human rights violations, reject this argument and relatives of some prisoners claim that detainees were coerced into submitting confessions through threats to punish their families.

The Campaign to Protect Journalists lists Cuba as one of the ten Worst Places to be a Journalist, noting the March 2003 arrest of 28 journalists who were convicted during one-day summary trials and given prison sentences of 14 to 27 years.

The CPJ says: "The crackdown, while unprecedented in its scale, is the culmination of years of repression and intimidation, including jailings, forced exile, confiscation of property, suspension of phone service, and orchestrated harassment by pro-government mobs.

"Cuban journalists, who dictate and fax their stories about human rights violations and petty corruption to their colleagues abroad, pose a direct challenge to the information monopoly that the government of President Fidel Castro Ruz maintains on the island."

The International Federation of Journalists also condemned the attacks on press freedom. IFJ General Secretary, Aidan White, said: "This is an outrageous and unacceptable attack on independent journalism.

"Journalists around the world, many of whom are sympathetic to Cuba given the history of political and economic isolation the country has suffered, will be shocked at this action."

Reporters Without Borders (otherwise known as Reporters Sans Frontiers) has also reported that an unidentified employee of the Cuban embassy in Paris produced a handgun when facing a protest and that to this will be added a complaint of "'complicity' in the use of violence by embassy staff to break up a protest outside the embassy by Reporters Without Borders activists on 24 April."

It is feared that the reporting of these violations is being seized upon by those supporting the forcible overthrow of the Cuban government and there are worries in many quarters that these concerns, however legitimate, could be used as a pretext for military action.