HAVANA (Reuters) -- Cuba's legislature on Monday formally condemned
                  U.S. economic sanctions against the island as a policy of deliberate
                  "genocide" whose perpetrators should be brought to trial and punished with
                  up to life imprisonment.

                  The proclamation by the National Assembly of People's Power was the
                  latest in a sustained political offensive against the embargo by Havana, which
                  is aware of growing internal U.S. criticism of the nearly four-decade-old
                  sanctions.

                  "The economic blockade imposed by the U.S. government on Cuba
                  constitutes an international crime of genocide," said Ricardo Alarcon, head
                  of the pro-government assembly, reading a document prepared by the
                  legislature.

                  The document's seven-point conclusion urged backing for Cuba from the
                  foreign community, and stated Havana's right to demand punishment and
                  material damages from Washington.

                  "For having carried out a serious, systematic and continued genocide against
                  the Cuban people for 40 years, according to international norms, principles,
                  accords and laws, it is up to the Cuban courts to judge and punish, in person
                  or in absentia, the guilty parties," the document said.

                  It added that those found guilty could be punished, under Cuban law, with a
                  maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

                  The document's reading, in the presence of President Fidel Castro, drew a
                  standing ovation from the 532 Cuban legislators present at one of the
                  assembly's occasional full sessions.

                  The measure may have been designed to give legitimacy to Havana's recent
                  formal claim, via a Cuban court, for $181 billion in damages for deaths and
                  injuries it alleges have resulted from 40 years of hostile U.S. policy.

                  But Havana also appears to be sensing a moment of opportunity for political
                  gain amid what Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque called last week a
                  growing "snowball" of opposition to the embargo from U.S. businessmen
                  and others.

                  Implemented soon after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the U.S. sanctions
                  aimed to squeeze Castro out of power, but have been his biggest nationalist
                  rallying point over the years.

                  Most foreign nations now oppose the embargo, which Cuba says has cost it
                  more than $60 billion, as well as untold human misery due to lack of food
                  and medicines.

                  "It is impossible to be more shamefully isolated in its policy of genocide,"
                  said Alarcon, reading a part of the assembly's document which cited recent
                  U.N. condemnations of the U.S. embargo.

                  Alarcon, a close ally of Castro, cited various U.S. officials, declassified CIA
                  documents, and historical events, to argue that the embargo's noose had
                  been increasingly tightened around Cuba.

                  "This total blockade, cynically described in an official manner with the
                  sweetened and apparently innocuous word 'embargo', did not stop being
                  strengthened over 40 years," he said. "As a cruel, cold and merciless crime
                  perpetrated over so much time, nothing worse could be conceived."

                     Copyright 1999 Reuters.