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© St. Petersburg Times, published December 23, 2001
HAVANA -- In the shade of one of this city's tranquil parks now stands a shiny new marble monument bearing the image of the mythical Irish warrior, Cuchulainn, strapped to a rock.
A floral wreath lying at its feet pays tribute to 10 Irish Republican Army "martyrs" who died in a British prison in Northern Ireland 20 years ago.
While the memorial to the 10, who died on a hunger strike, might seem out of place in this distant tropical setting, the park at H and 21 streets is dotted with historical curiosities.
An eclectic mix of monuments includes tributes to the French writer Victor Hugo, a Romanian poet, and two Cuban independence figures. In another park a few blocks away sits the cast bronze image of John Lennon.
So the small memorial ceremony held Tuesday to inaugurate the park's latest addition came as no surprise to local passersby. They hardly seemed to notice the presence of Gerry Adams, the Irish republican leader and Sinn Fein president.
In fact, Adams' three-day visit to Cuba created more of a stir in the United States and Britain than it did in Cuba. With the 3-year-old Northern Ireland peace process moving into a decisive phase, critics scratched their heads wondering what Adams was up to visiting the communist backwater of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
British officials are pinning their hopes for peace on Adams' political maturity and leadership skills. Meanwhile, Sinn Fein's Irish-American lobby is understandably worried about any association with Washington's archenemy in Havana.
But when all was said and done -- Adams departed Wednesday night -- it was hard to see what damage had been done. Indeed, years from now his visit to Cuba may go down as little more than a minor historical anecdote in the revolutionary history of two distant islands.
Although Adams met in Havana with Cuba's top political bosses, including Castro, nothing concrete emerged from their talks other than expressions of mutual admiration and revolutionary solidarity.
A man still regarded by many in Britain as an unrepentant terrorist leader, Adams is more concerned these days with building his credentials as a political force.
"Terrorism is ethically indefensible," he said in a keynote speech at a Communist Party gathering Tuesday night.
For sure, there were other statements uttered in Havana that were less likely to please ears in Washington and London.
After laying a wreath at the hunger strikers memorial, Adams hailed the heroism of the IRA men, while offering no remorse for the innocent victims of IRA bombs.
An inscription on the stone compares the "cruelty" of the British government's treatment of the prisoners to "the medieval Inquisition." The 10 starved themselves to death in the summer of 1981 after the British government refused to recognize them as political prisoners.
But, while Britain may not enjoy having its nose rubbed in the bitter memory of the hunger strike, at this stage a few words on a memorial stone in a Havana park are unlikely to derail the peace process.
Likewise, one senior Cuban official used the event at the memorial to launch into a vitriolic attack on the conduct of the war in Afghanistan, calling the civilian casualties "ethnic genocide."
But Washington is used to such language by now. Despite its criticism of the war, Cuba was swift to condemn the Sept. 11 attacks.
If anything, any upset Adams may have caused in Washington could move the Irish peace process along more swiftly. Since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has been turning up the pressure on Sinn Fein to implement its long-awaited decommissioning of weapons.
After three suspected IRA members were arrested recently in Colombia and accused of training Marxist guerrillas, Washington has also warned Sinn Fein to sever any ties it may have with illegal groups in that country.
Inevitably Adams' visit will provide fodder for those who question his political agenda in Cuba.
After a meeting with Castro, Adams brushed aside questions about Cuba's one-party system and its much-criticized human rights record.
"This is very much a popular struggle in which people have had advantages from being born in this small island," he said.
Adams might be forgiven his ignorance over the size of the Caribbean's largest island; its population of 11-million is more than twice that of a united Ireland. But critics will no doubt seize upon his defense of Cuban civil rights.
"I think all of these things are a matter of opinion," he suggested after being asked by reporters if he thought Castro was a human rights violator. "I certainly uphold human rights. I want to see civil and religious values upheld in all the world."
Adams criticized the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba during his visit, noting that it has repeatedly been condemned at the United Nations. But he made no mention of similar U.N. votes regarding Cuba's human rights record. Amnesty International has reported that Cuba holds as many as 200 political prisoners in jail. The European Union has also pressed Cuba over its political system, declaring it an obstacle to future improved relations.
Even so, there seems little to fear in the relationship between Castro and Adams. While Cuba is still included as one of seven countries on Washington's official blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, that designation may have more to do with political reasons. The State Department's terrorism report noticeably makes no charge that Cuba is actively supporting terrorist operations.
Adams ended his visit Wednesday with a walkabout in the colonial city of Old Havana that took him to O'Reilly Street, named after a former Spanish governor of Irish descent. He stopped to have his photo taken under a plaque that reads: "Two island peoples in the same seas of struggle and hope. Cuba and Ireland."
While both may still be swimming in that sea, there is reason to hope that violence and terrorism are increasingly a thing of the past.