From Herald Wire Services

  WASHINGTON -Secretary of State Colin Powell issued a strong condemnation of the Cuban government Monday, describing it as ``a regime that is one of the last of its kind on the face of the earth and really is an aberration in the Western Hemisphere.''

  The administration's chief diplomat said all aspects of U.S. policy toward Cuba are being reviewed in view of what Powell called ''a deteriorating human-rights situation,'' a reference to a recent wave of repression that included long prison terms for dissidents and the summary execution of three men who tried to hijack a ferry to reach U.S. shores.

  Otto Reich, the Cuban-born special envoy for Latin America on the National Security Council, told the Council of the Americas, meanwhile, that President Fidel Castro has responded to world concerns over human rights ``by filling more jails with peaceful dissidents, writers, doctors, lawyers.''

  ''In the last few weeks we have seen once again the cynicism and brutality of the Cuban dictator,'' Reich said, referring to the executions of 'three young men born under the revolution . . . executed for trying to flee the workers' paradise.''

  The controversy over events in Cuba continued to echo around the world. Among other developments:

  • Three former Panamanian presidents and prominent politicians, clergymen, diplomats and artists condemned the recent crackdown by Cuban authorities and called on
  Castro to ''faithfully'' comply with his international obligations.

  The ''Declaration on the Events in Cuba,'' signed by former Presidents Arístides Royo, Guillermo Endara and Nicolás Ardito Barletta said Castro had reneged on
  declarations he has signed at summits vowing to respect human rights.

  • Governments in at least three countries -- Italy, Spain and Chile -- prepared to debate the human-rights situation in Cuba today with a view toward issuing formal
  condemnations. In Italy, a variety of motions submitted by both leftist and rightist factions are highly critical of the Castro government. In Madrid, the draft resolution by
  the Socialist Party of Spain said recent events were ``the biggest campaign of repression in a decade against independent journalists.''

  • Also in Spain, artists and intellectuals signed a manifesto condemning Cuba's actions. Among the signers were film directors Fernando Trueba and Pedro Almodóvar,
  actors Pilar and Javier Bardem, and singer Joan Manuel Serrat.

  The manifesto, a reply to a plea by Cuban intellectuals last week asking for solidarity from their counterparts abroad, said ``attempts against life and liberty . . . are
  injustices and crimes against humanity.''

  • In Paris, Reporters Without Borders complained that the Cuban ambassador to France, Eumelio Caballero Rodríguez, joined Cuban security agents who on Thursday
  broke up an anti-Castro demonstration by RWB activists outside the Cuban Embassy.

  The activists were ''violently beaten'' by security agents, said the RWB's secretary general, Robert Ménard, in a letter to Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.