By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, May 28 1999 (IPS)

The designation of a new foreign minister, announced Friday by the Cuban government, could be linked to last month’s approval by the United Nations Human Rights Commission of a condemnation of Cuba’s rights record, according to diplomatic sources.

Felipe Perez Roque, a member of the Communist Party Central Committee (PCC) and the Council of State (the highest-level collective organ of government), will replace Roberto Robaina, who was “released from his post until he is assigned new functions,” stated an official communique.

The statement issued by the Council of State said the designation of the new minister was proposed by President Fidel Castro and approved by that body and the PCC leadership.

Perez, 34, is also a parliamentary deputy, and has served for several years as the head of Castro’s team of advisers, a post previously occupied by Vice-President Carlos Lage.

The new foreign minister “is familiar, as few are, with the ideas and thinking of Fidel. He is known by all of the country’s leaders,” said the communique published in Friday’s edition of ‘Granma’, the publication of the ruling Communist Party.

The newspaper reported that Castro described Perez as “the right party leader” for the job, given “the tense international situation” and the need for “more profound, rigorous, systematic and demanding work in that sphere.”

The official communique acknowledged that Robaina, 43, had “made the greatest of efforts to carry out the tasks for which he was responsible.” But it failed to mention the reasons for his removal from the post.

The decision, however, seemed imminent to many ever since the suspension of a tour by Robaina which was to start Apr 24, the day after a motion condemning Cuba’s human rights performance, sponsored by the Czech Republic and Poland, was approved in Geneva.

Cuba, which had made it off the black list of human rights violators, was put back in the dock when the resolution was approved by 21-to-20, with 12 abstentions, on Apr 23.

Cuban officials said that at the plenary session of the UN Human Rights Commission, 47 U.S. officials had kept a close eye on the delegates from other countries, pestering them and making it impossible for them to make any contact with Cuba’s diplomats.

Rumours on an imminent replacement of the foreign minister have been circulating over the past month, due to Robaina’s virtual absence from the media and public events, even from activities specifically involving the foreign ministry.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Rogelio Sierra, however, announced to the press Thursday that Robaina was about to set off on a tour to Venezuela, Panama and Haiti.

The political future of Robaina – a member of the PCC’s politburo, the Council of State and parliament – is as yet unclear.

A math professor, Robaina became well-known in Cuba while serving as first secretary of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), considered the PCC’s source of fresh talent, from 1986 to 1993.

Early this decade, at the height of the economic crisis, he headed a group of young people that attempted to renovate the UJC through a level of activism unprecedented in Cuban society.

Many of those youngsters sit on the country’s highest governing bodies today. And one of them is Perez himself, who in the early 1990s was a student in a technical institute and president of the University Student Federation.

The naming of Robaina as foreign minister on Mar 30, 1993, to replace Ricardo Alarcon (today president of parliament), was described by Granma as “a bold decision,” consistent with “the revolution’s policy of ongoing renovation.”

Although he was not a career diplomat, the government considered that “his unquestionable capacity for debate, discussion, agile responses, charisma” and people skills made Robaina apt for the job.

Diplomatic sources said at the time that Castro was seeking to make his foreign policy more dynamic.

Robaina attempted to carry into the Foreign Ministry the renovating, enthusiastic image he brought from the UJC, and launched a diplomatic offensive to break down Cuba’s isolation in the wake of the disappearance of the socialist bloc.

Over the past five years, Cuba consolidated its ties to the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America, forged closer relations with several European countries, and was admitted into the Latin American Integration Association.

But negotiations with the European Union toward a framework cooperation accord ground to a standstill, and moments of diplomatic tension were experienced with Spain, Mexico and Uruguay.

One of the arguments put forth for the designation of Perez was that he had participated in every delegation accompanying Castro to international events, summits and official visits to other countries over the past seven years.

Castro highlighted the experience accumulated by Perez, his maturity, personal integrity, character, his habits of study and analysis, and his capacity for forming and setting forth his own views, said the Council of State declaration.

Excerpt: