Bomb kills Italian in Havana

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

Three bombs jolted neighboring Havana hotels within 50 minutes and killed an Italian-Canadian businessman Thursday, the first fatality in a five-month bombing campaign aimed at draining President Fidel Castro's coffers.

The explosions, obviously coordinated despite the tight security deployed around hotels and other tourist centers since April, left Cubans expressing shock over ``this terrorism'' and predicting even harsher protective measures.

Havana residents said the bombers' ability to continue striking at tourism targets reinforced the belief that they must be Cubans living on the island, who know their way around security systems, rather than exiles.

Witnesses said the victim was sitting with a woman in the lobby bar of the Copacabana Hotel when a bomb went off at 11:35 a.m., driving a piece of shrapnel into his throat that sliced a major artery and killed him almost instantly.

``The window glass all shattered, the metal frames are all twisted, the furniture is destroyed and there's a big puddle of dark blood on the floor,'' said a maid at the hotel who asked for anonymity.

Italy's Foreign Ministry identified the man as Fabio Di Celmo, 32, a Genoa native living in Montreal and vacationing with his father in Cuba, and said Rome would make no further comment until it learns more about the blast.

``We are awaiting an inquiry by Cuban authorities, to know what are the facts and reasons for these bombs,'' a spokesman said. ``We know it was a bomb, but we don't know the reason why this bomb exploded.''

Spain's EFE news agency reported from Havana that Di Celmo had been living in Cuba for the past two months in a rented house near the Copacabana while arranging to open a business in Cuba. His father was staying at the Copacabana, EFE added.

No other injuries reported

No injuries were reported from the other two bombs that exploded within the next 50 minutes in the lobbies of the Triton and Chateau Miramar hotels. They and the Copacabana are 800 yards apart in the once-elegant Miramar neighborhood. They are moderately priced hotels far from the main Havana tourist attractions but near man-made beaches.

Employees said the 11:50 bomb at the Triton and the 12:10 blast at the Chateau Miramar caused only minor damage to lobby furniture, indicating that those bombs were relatively small. It was not clear if the Copacabana bomb was more powerful, or if Di Celmo was simply unlucky.
Police immediately closed off access to the hotels, and a telephone operator at one said he was under orders to tell any worried callers from abroad ``that everything is under control.''

The blasts brought to 10 the number of bombs or attempted bombings at hotels in Havana and the beach resort of Varadero since April. The explosions are part of an apparent campaign to damage tourism, which brings in one million visitors a year and $1.34 billion, Cuba's single largest source of income.

First deadly blast

The latest bomb was the first to kill -- only three minor injuries were reported in previous blasts -- and was all but certain to affect bookings by Italians and Canadians who learn of it from their news media.

Italians are the single largest group of tourists in Cuba these days, followed closely by Canadians.

Havana residents said that with the first fatality, the government is now likely to move harshly to increase security, with a series of steps it was unwilling to take before in order to avoid scaring away tourists.

``Cuba clearly is going to have to adopt emergency measures now to protect itself from this terrorism,'' said an author who lives in Havana. ``It can no longer hope to keep things quiet.''

Cuban officials, reluctant to confirm previous bombings, have blamed the explosions on burst pipes and electrical fires even when hotel employees confirmed they were bombs.

Yet the fact that the bombs have continued to explode for five months in one of the most tightly controlled nations of the hemisphere indicates that officials have few or no real clues on who is behind the attacks.

Talk of `insiders'

``With each bombing, the argument grows that this must be the work of insiders, who know how to slip into and out of hotels that have been under heavy guard since April,'' said one foreigner living in Havana.

Most of the speculation on ``insiders'' focuses on military officers or members of the security forces unhappy with Castro, since all the known civilian dissident groups advocate a peaceful transition to democracy.

No group has made any credible claim of responsibility for the blasts, and not enough is known about the type of explosives and detonators used to point toward any group.

Havana has repeatedly stated that it has evidence that the materials and people involved have come ``from the United States.'' Washington has dismissed the charge as propaganda and challenged Cuba to show its evidence.

FBI agents in Miami began investigating possible links between exiles and the bombings after a Hialeah woman was arrested in Havana in May with ``traces'' of plastic explosives in her handbag, but no one has been detained in Miami

Ninoska Perez, spokeswoman for the Cuban American National Foundation, commenting on Thursday's fatal bombing, said the loss of any life is ``always to be lamented. I imagine that these people [the bombers] have come to believe that nothing has worked in 38 years'' to oust Castro by peaceful means.

This report was supplemented with Herald wire services.

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald