Guatemalan apologizes to Cuba on Bay of Pigs

HAVANA - Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom apologized to Cuba yesterday for the help his country gave to the CIA-directed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

At the height of the Cold War, the Guatemalan military government of Miguel Ramon Ydigoras Fuentes allowed the CIA to train a Cuban exile force in a rural province.

"Today I want to ask Cuba's forgiveness for having offered our country, our territory, to prepare an invasion of Cuba," Colom, whose government is considered center-leftist, said during a speech at the University of Havana. "It wasn't us, but it was our territory."

About 1,500 Cuban exiles trained in Guatemala before invading Cuba on April 17, 1961, in a failed bid to overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government.