CUBA-MEXICO: Ties Face Toughest Test Ever

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Apr 23 2002 (IPS) - The diplomatic relations between Cuba and Mexico are facing their worst crisis ever, and the future of ties between the two countries depends on what Mexican President Vicente Fox decides to do.

“For telling these truths, diplomatic ties may be severed, but the formal and historical links between the people of Mexico and Cuba will be eternal,” Cuban President Fidel Castro said late Monday.

The Cuban leader held a special news briefing Monday for local and foreign correspondents in which he aired the tape recording of a private telephone conversation with Fox, which took place just before Castro travelled to Mexico last month to attend the International Conference on Financing for Development.

“If it is proven that this conversation never took place, and that these are not President Fox’s words, I promise to immediately resign from all of my posts and my duties” in the Cuban government, said Castro.

“I would not have the nerve to continue governing this country,” concluded the president in his speech, which was broadcast live over state television.

In an unprecedented gesture, Castro read and analysed a telephone conversation with Fox, and for anyone who had doubts, he played the tape recording and handed out transcriptions of the conversation to the press.

Mexico’s response was immediate. A statement released by the Fox administration Monday night described Castro’s revelations as an offense, but ensured that diplomatic ties would be maintained, “independently of anecdotes and episodes such as this.”

The text of Castro’s speech was published in full Tuesday by the Cuban press, along with an announcement for a televised “round table” to debate “the tense and dramatic situation” in relations between Cuba and Mexico.

Castro thus broke the silence he had maintained since his abrupt departure on Mar 21 from the International Conference on Financing for Development, organised by the United Nations in the northeastern Mexican city of Monterrey.

The president also showed that his government is determined to do all that is necessary to demonstrate “the truth,” even when it comes to ties with “a sister country” like Mexico.

According to the tape recording aired by Castro, Fox insistently asked him to stay at the UN conference for only one day, to avoid “complicating” things.

In addition, Fox, who according to Havana was “dragged” into this “brazen adventure” by Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda, asked Castro to abstain from “attacking” the United States or President George W. Bush.

“First of all, I would like to say that this conversation is to be private, just between you and I, do you agree?” Fox can be heard to say at the beginning of the telephone conversation with Castro.

In its swift response, the Mexican government said it was “unacceptable for Cuban authorities to violate the privacy of a conversation between the two presidents, thus breaking an agreement of trust and good faith.”

The Mexican communique added that, as the conversation demonstrates, Castro “accepted the agreed terms of attendance” in the conference, and that “Mexico received no suggestion or pressure to condition (Castro’s) participation.

“President Fox simply asked his Cuban counterpart for minimal courtesy for the rest of the guests, in the same way that he asked other participants to show the same courtesy towards the Cuban president,” added the statement.

At the time, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said Castro’s withdrawal from the Monterrey conference was the result of a request from high-level Mexican officials, who he said were acting under pressure from the United States.

But both Fox and Castañeda repeatedly denied Pérez Roque’s claims following the Monterrey conference.

On Mar 21, Castañeda said “there was no pressure, influence, effort, request, suggestion or insinuation” by the Mexican government to encourage Castro to keep his attendance brief.

Fox, meanwhile, told the Mexican daily La Jornada that “Castro was here in Monterrey, he participated in the congress, in the United Nations conference, and then he decided to leave. No one forced him to leave.”

Castro also noted Monday that “Bush piously stated that the United States had not put any pressure on Mexico.

“Everyone was lying left and right,” he added.

“If Castañeda would have opened his thesaurus to the right page, he would have found that ‘lie’ is synonymous with: deceive, cheat, fib, scheme, be untruthful, falsify…,” he quipped.

Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba’s ruling Communist Party, warned in a Mar 26 editorial that Havana had “irrefutable evidence,” and that it was abstaining from using it in order not to hurt Mexico by damaging its credibility or creating “internal instability.”

Castro also said Mexico attempted to “buy” his silence regarding the events in Monterrey by offering to assume Venezuela’s commitments to provide oil supplies to Cuba, during the Apr 11 coup d’etat against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and the counter-coup that returned him to power two days later.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was a communique issued by the Fox administration on Apr 15 announcing that Mexico planned to back a resolution in the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva criticising Havana’s human rights record.

The resolution sponsored by Uruguay and approved on Apr 19 by a vote of 23 to 21 with 9 abstentions was, according to Havana, “cooked up” by Washington, with the active participation of Castañeda from the very start.

The Mexican foreign minister had told his opposite number in Cuba, Pérez Roque, during Fox’s Feb 3-4 visit to the island that Mexico would not sponsor, promote or support any motion against Cuba in Geneva.

Fox, however, clarified that the resolution passed last Friday by the UN Human Rights Commission was not a “condemnation,” but “a positive proposal in favour of human rights, which also referred to the U.S. embargo against the island.”

But the resolution approved by the commission was firmly rejected by the Castro government, which stood firm in its refusal to accept a visit to Cuba by a representative of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Mary Robinson.

“The promise not to sponsor, promote or support a resolution against Cuba, given by Castañeda as well as President Fox during his visit to Cuba, has been despicably betrayed,” said Castro while explaining why he revealed the tape recorded conversation between himself and Fox.

But authorities in Mexico responded that “the only government that exercised pressure on Mexico regarding its vote in Geneva on Cuba’s human rights record was Havana.

“The terms of relations between Mexico and Cuba are exclusively determined by Mexico. It is inadmissible for the government in Havana to continue meddling in internal debates in our country, which are exclusively Mexico’s business,” added the statement.

Ties between Mexico and Cuba have traditionally been strong. Mexico was the only Latin American country that did not sever ties with Havana after the Jan 1, 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

But tension began to rise in April last year, when Pérez Roque accused Castañeda of attempting to muster support for a motion censuring Havana in the UN Human Rights Commission, even though the Mexican government had stated that it would abstain from voting as usual.