IBERO-AMERICA: Spain’s Monarchy Pampered by Socialist Cuba

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos and Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Nov 16 1999 (IPS) - The King and Queen of Spain, in Cuba on the occasion of the ninth Ibero-American summit, received royal treatment at the hands of the socialist government and people of Cuba, partly because their presence was key to the success of the gathering.

Special attention, gifts, welcome messages and broad coverage by the official media marked the first visit by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía to Cuba.

At Monday night’s formal dinner, President Fidel Castro thanked the King and Queen for their “friendly presence” at the Monday to Tuesday summit of the leaders of Latin America, Spain and Portugal, stressing that theirs was the first visit by royalty to Cuba.

A diplomat from Central America who preferred not to be identified said that if the visit by Juan Carlos and Sofía had been cancelled, as was speculated at one point, the summit would have been a flop.

Presidents Miguel Angel Rodríguez of Costa Rica, Francisco Flores of El Salvador, and Arnoldo Alemán of Nicaragua decided not to attend in order to mark their political differences with the Castro government.

Chilean President Eduardo Frei stayed away due to Chile’s dispute with Spain over the legal action taken in that country against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-90), and Argentine President Carlos Menem refrained from participating in solidarity with Frei.

Argentine analyst Andrés Oppenheimer said Spain seemed to be the country with the greatest interest in holding the Ibero- American summits, perhaps due to a desire to present itself before the rest of Europe as the leader of a cultural community made up of more than 400 million people.

Today Spain is Cuba’s top trading partner, and the main investor in the island, especially in the area of tourism. (Spain is second to Canada in investment in Latin America as a whole). Spain’s investments in Cuba currently stand at around 200 million dollars.

From 1990 to 1997, annual trade between the two countries grew from 372 to 618 million dollars, and is still climbing fast. Cuba ranks fourth in Latin America with regards to imports from Spain, after Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

More than 60 percent of Cubans are direct descendants of Spaniards, as was José Martí, the most venerated of the local heroes of the 19th century, and many of the leaders of the Cuban revolution, including Castro himself.

The island was a strategic enclave in the colonial trade between the Americas and Spain, and 120 Spanish firms, including three banks, currently operate here. There are also 70 joint ventures between Cuban and Spanish firms – of a total of 370 joint ventures between the Cuban government and foreign capital.

During the summit, Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar stayed at the Meliá Havana hotel, Cuban-owned but run by the Spanish hotel chain Sol Meliá, which is facing possible sanctions for building on property in Cuba that was allegedly confiscated from U.S. nationals.

Aznar’s gesture of support for the Sol Meliá hotel chain in its dispute with the United States over the Helms-Burton law – which provides for sanctions against companies from third countries that “traffic” in property seized from U.S. nationals – was well- received in Havana.

But his meeting with dissident leaders did not go over so well.

While King Juan Carlos met Havana Archbishop Jaime Ortega, Aznar received the families of political prisoners and a group of dissidents in the Spanish Embassy.

Aznar’s followed similar meetings between opposition leaders and Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio, Mexican and Nicaraguan foreign ministers Rosario Green and Eduardo Montealegre, and consular officials from Costa Rica.

“It is historic, never before have so many foreign leaders met with us,” said Elizardo Sánchez, president of the illegal Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, after a 50-minute meeting with Aznar.

The conservative prime minister also met Héctor Palacios, Osvaldo Payá, Gustavo Arcos and independent poet and journalist Raúl Rivero, all considered “puppets” of Washington by the Castro administration.

He also received the families of Marta Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca, René Gómez and Félix Bonne, members of the Internal Dissidence Working Group, imprisoned early this year for drawing up a document critical of the conclusions of the fifth congress of Cuba’s ruling Communist Party, which they sent for distribution abroad.

Castro has been urged to release the so-called “Group of Four” by the Vatican, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and representatives of the Spanish government who visited the island this year, among others.

“To the extent of our possibilities, I hope that they will not be in prison much longer,” Aznar told the press.

In his speech at the opening ceremony of the summit Tuesday, Castro admitted that although he was not very pleased, he had yielded to the desire of authorities from several countries attending the summit to meet with representatives of opposition groups, which are illegal in Cuba.

He also stressed the significance of the annual Ibero-American summits, pointing out that “Spain and Portugal have become solid and indispensable bridges” between Latin America and the European Union.

Local observers said Aznar killed three birds with one stone in Havana by expressing Spain’s keen interest in the summit’s success, supporting Spanish businesses in Cuba, and clearly marking a distance from Cuba’s socialist regime.

Many of the roughly 4,000 Spanish-born people living in Cuba today belong to cultural associations like the Federation of Galician Societies.

The president of that group, Alfredo Gómez, said “we would have liked to welcome [the King] at the airport as he deserves, with the presence of all of the Spanish institutions, but that was not possible on this occasion.”

The tight security organised by the Cuban government for the summit made any contact between locals and the foreign visitors all but impossible. But among the guests who attracted the most attention among Cubans were Juan Carlos and Sofía, who were widely spoken of with admiration and appreciation.

The hostess of a children’s TV programme dedicated several minutes Tuesday to the subject of the King and Queen, explaining that they no longer used the crowns or rich garments worn by royalty featured in story books.

“King Carlos’ visit to this country, which many consider the most ‘hispanophile’ of Latin America, is charged with symbols, and not only flesh and blood,” said the vice-president of Cuba’s Council of Ministers, José Ramón Fernández – whose parents hailed from Spain.