CUBA-SPAIN: Diplomatic Crisis Goes on Hold

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Nov 28 1996 (IPS) - The crisis between Cuba and Spain went “on hold” Thursday as both parties appeared to be behaving calmly, said the island’s foreign ministry.

Cuba’s foreign ministry spokesman, Miguel Alfonso, told the press nothing had either worsened or improved the situation in bilateral relations after Havana took diplomatic action Tuesday.

The crisis burst out when the Cuban government withdrew support for Spain’s new ambassador in Havana, Jose Coderch, after he was judged to have made statements unworthy of a diplomat to a Madrid newspaper.

Coderch’s imprudent statement that the Spanish embassy would be opening its doors to the opposition, led to hundreds of Cubans collecting in the area around the embassy with obvious intentions of seeking asylum there.

On Thursday, the embassy continued to be protected by a “human chain” of construction workers called in by the Cuban authorities, and dozens of police controlled access to the area.

Coderch also said he would do everything he could to encourage a peaceful transition to democracy in the Caribbean nation.

The Cuban decision was not made public until the European Union approved, with some modifications, a Spanish proposal which indicated the need to stimulate the change to a multiparty State, the respect for human rights and fundamental liberties in the Caribbean country.

“Cuba considers normal relations cannot be based on political preconditions,” said Alfonso, adding that no formal proposal had yet been received from the European Union.

Alfonso said “prudence, good sense and consideration are key attitudes” in a moment of crisis.

Official sources insist Cuba is interested in continuing to develop relations with Spain and that any Spanish entrepreneur with interests in the island should keep calm and confident.

“The legitimate, fair and normal interest of Spanish investors in Cuba will survive the present difference between the two countries,” said Ricardo Alarcon, head of Cuba’s parliament, in declarations on State radio.

Nonetheless, Juan Martin Millan, president of the Spanish Federation of Travel Agency Associations, told IPS that future travel reservations were down 50 percent although no trips already booked have so far been cancelled.

Spain is Cuba’s main capitalist trade partner, with large investments in the hotel sector through the Sol-Melia, Tript, Occidental and Viajes Iberia chains.

And while high ranking officials in Havana have tried to keep the crisis low-key, the official press have maintained their attack on the Spanish government and its conservative president Jose Maria Aznar.

The official Communist party daily “Granma” reported Thursday the recently created Hispano-Cuban Foundation is trying to “sabotage any positive relation” with the Caribbean country in the European ambit and to “promote subversive action” against the island in “all territories.”

The Foundation, which was formed in Madrid on Nov. 14, is headed by Jorge Mas Canosa, leader of the most radical sector of the Cuban opposition in Miami, and the Spanish deputy Guillermo Gortazar, of the ruling Peoples Party.

Gortazar “bribed Spanish banks and companies with investments on the island, asking for money for the new Foundation in return for immunity from attack for doing business with the Caribbean nation,” said Granma.

The newspaper also claimed the alliance with the Cuban right in the United States was signed a year ago, when the current president was received in the headquarters of the National Cuban American Foundation (FNCA) in Miami.

The FNCA represents the most radical sector of Cuban exiles and, according to Granma, Aznar advised his members to be more united in order to “achieve the reestablishment of democracy in Cuba” and its representatives promised him financial support for his electoral campaign.

The Spaniards repeated they were “interested in occupying a leading position in Cubas’s economic and cultural space,” but this project is not being helped by the current policy, said the analyst Nicanor Leon Cotayo in Granma.