CUBA-MEXICO: Pragmatism is the Word

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg and Diego Cevallos

HAVANA/MEXICO CITY, Feb 5 2002 (IPS) - Mexican President Vicente Fox, who met with dissident leaders Monday on his two-day visit to Cuba, gave clear signs that a growing “pragmatism” would govern relations between the two countries.

Our ties with the “Cuban revolution” have ended, and relations with a “new republic” have emerged, said Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda, summing up the new focus that Mexico will give to its relations with Cuba.

Fox, who belongs to the conservative National Action Party, visited the socialist island nation Sunday and Monday, with a busy agenda including a visit with President Fidel Castro and a meeting with dissidents.

The president said Monday that he had handed Castro a list containing the names of six political prisoners who Mexico would like to see released. He added that he and the Cuban leader discussed the issues of democracy and human rights.

“I briefly told him that my government was keeping a close eye on the situation in Cuba, and that we would always keep our ears open, to listen to the voices of Cuban society and citizens,” said Fox.

But “Cuba is not an exception, and Mexico seeks to promote the full observance of human rights throughout the world,” he added.

Fox met with a number of dissident leaders in the Mexican Embassy shortly before returning to Mexico. The meeting, the first of its kind by a Mexican president on a visit to Cuba, was in doubt until the last minute, due to the Cuban government’s resistance.

However, Latin American diplomats said Fox’s meeting with dissidents did not take Castro by surprise.

“Both governments must adapt their relations to the new times, to a more pragmatic diplomatic approach,” said one of the sources.

Although the government of Fox’s predecessor Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000) distanced itself from Cuba, relations between the two countries have long been marked by “an ideological link and a kind of admiration,” Cuban writer Lisandro Otero told IPS in Mexico City.

“Today you can see that ties with Mexico will be more institutional in nature. However, that is not new, and is part of the process of greater openness that the Cuban regime is experiencing,” said Otero, who served as the socialist regime’s deputy minister of culture from 1966 to 1970, and formed part of the Cuban diplomatic corps until 1980.

The writer believes Fox’s meeting with the dissidents was previously agreed with Castro. “Officials will clearly deny it, but it is obvious,” said Otero.

“It is all part of the Cuban government’s growing openness, and of the growing freedom granted to dissidents,” he added.

Cuban authorities claim the internal opposition organisations are “tiny groups” on the U.S. payroll, and deny them recognition as legal entities. But more and more foreign delegations seek out meetings with representatives of the groups, an especially sensitive question for the Castro administration.

Fox met with Osvaldo Payá, the head of the Christian Liberation Movement, Héctor Palacio of the Liberal Party, Manuel Cuesta of the Socialist Current, Marta Beatriz Roque with the Movement of Independent Economists, and prominent opposition leader Elizardo Sánchez.

“Markedly political issues were not addressed in the meeting…the common denominator was the question of human rights,” Sánchez told IPS in Havana.

“President Fox expressed his best wishes for Cubans to be able to work out our difficulties within the best possible harmony,” added Sánchez, president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Conciliation.

He added that a high-ranking Mexican official present at the meeting guaranteed that his government “would continue listening” to the viewpoints expressed by the internal opposition in Cuba “through diplomatic channels.”

On Sunday evening, Fox and Castro, who had spent most of the day together, chatted behind closed doors.

According to Sánchez, Foreign Minister Castañeda told the dissidents that between Castro and Fox there was “a current of mutual liking.”

Castañeda, who is critical of the Cuban government, conversed for around half an hour with the opposition leaders after Fox went to breakfast with Mexican residents in Cuba, the last stop on his agenda before he flew back to Mexico.

On Sunday afteroon, the Mexican foreign minister had stated that his government “will not sponsor or co-sponsor any resolution on the issue of Cuba” in the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

That statement calmed Cuban authorities, who last week complained of a U.S.-led “conspiracy” to get the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Commission to approve a new resolution condemning Cuba’s human rights record.

Cuba has been censured year after year in the UN commission since 1990, with only one exception, in 1998. A motion sponsored by the Czech Republic was approved last April by a vote of 22 to 20. Mexico and nine other member countries abstained.

Castañeda said in a press conference that in the next meeting in Geneva, scheduled for April, Mexico’s vote “will probably be similar to last year’s” if the resolution looks like the one approved at that time.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque accompanied Fox back to the airport, and described the visit as “a contribution to strengthening bilateral relations.”

Pérez Roque said Fox and Castañeda had ensured him that Mexico would not lend itself to any “manuevering” in the UN Human Rights Commission.

Cuba and Mexico aim to strengthen their trade flow, which amounted to 325 million dollars last year, bolster cooperation, especially in agricultural development and oil prospecting, and step up cultural and educational exchanges.