Cuba Detains U.S. Contractor: Claims of 'Privatization of War'

A U.S. contractor detained last month in Cuba for distributing satellite communications equipment to dissidents worked for American "secret services" and is being investigated, a top Cuban official said on Wednesday.

Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon shed no light on what the government plans to do with the prisoner, who President Raul Castro has cited as evidence that the United States continues its five-decade long campaign to subvert the island's communist system.

The man, arrested in early December, has never been publicly identified. U.S. diplomats were permitted to visit him on December 28, but they have provided little information about the meeting.

He worked for a Maryland-based company called Development Alternatives Inc. that said he was involved in a U.S. government program to strengthen civil society and promote democracy in Cuba.

"This is a man hired by a company that contracts for the American secret services and that is the object of investigation," Alarcon told reporters after a meeting of Cuba's National Election Commission.

He said the contractor was part of trend toward "privatization of war" by the United States, which hires people to be "agents, torturers, spies."

Asked if the prisoner was in good condition, Alarcon said, "I can assure you that he is much better -- much, much better -- than the victims of those contractors all over the world."

President Castro, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel Castro in 2008, referred to the arrested contractor in a December 21 speech to the National Assembly, saying it was evidence that despite Obama's hopeful words, "The enemy is as active as ever."

[A] country which has "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism". Once so designated, resulting sanctions to penalize persons and countries engaging in state-sponsored terrorism fall into four categories of "restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions."