February 11, 2002

Fox in Cuba — Rapprochement and Reproach

By Barnard R. Thompson

Vicente Fox Quesada made his first trip to Cuba as president of the United Mexican States on February 3 and 4, a visit that lasted but 24 hours.  Yet this was time enough for a brouhaha to grow out of differing critiques and condemnations, even before and certainly after the president’s encounter with fidelismo.  And the wrangling continues — in multinational venues, but with the theater lost to those who may not track the proceedings or read Spanish language publications.

In response to an invitation from Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Council of State and President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba, Fox traveled to the communist island on a “working visit.”  The timing also commemorated the centennial anniversary of Mexico-Cuba relations.  The official party included Martha Sahagún de Fox, the president’s wife, as well as foreign minister Jorge G. Castañeda and other members of the Fox government.  Billionaire businessman Carlos Slim Helú, owner of the Teléfonos de México (Telmex) national telephone system (among other enterprises), was also with the team.

Key to the Fox-Castro agenda — the intent to rekindle relations between the two countries, that have chilled since 1999 when former President Ernesto Zedillo’s foreign minister, Rosario Green Macías, voiced Mexican concerns regarding Cuba’s human rights record while attending a Havana summit of Ibero-American leaders.  Just as important — if not more so, part and parcel of the current plans of each government is the goal of stimulating binational trade, joint ventures and private sector foreign investment.  Two areas of special interest, singled out by Fox during a press conference on the return flight to Mexico, included electricity generation and hydrocarbon exploitation.

In addition, the Fox agenda included certain international issues as Mexico moves to take a more forceful role globally, rationalized in part as Mexico just began a two-year impermanent seat on the Security Council of the United Nations.  In a guarded reference to Fox bringing up international subjects, such as the current situations in Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela, after the meetings Castro said that yes he discussed them with Fox “by virtue of the questions he asked me.”  Prior to his trip to Cuba, in an interview with a reporter from the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, Fox was asked “might Mexico be able to play a part in the difficult relationship between Cuba and the U.S.A.?”  Fox responded: “I do not think it would be our role to intervene to push that.  That will be between them.”

One of Cuba’s concerns is the forthcoming vote by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.  The Geneva-based Commission will hold its annual six-week session from March 18 to April 26, and the Cubans fear a U.S.A.-led campaign to again adopt a resolution condemning human rights practices on the island.  Undoubtedly buoyed by last year’s ouster of the U.S.A. from the Commission, the Cubans now seem to have hoodwinked Mexico.  Days before the Fox trip, Cuba compelled Mexico to make a public declaration on its position.  Felipe Pérez Roque, Cuba’s foreign minister, accused two Latin American governments of promoting a resolution against the island for the forthcoming session of the Commission.  He identified one country as Argentina, and while he did not say the other was Mexico he never said it was not.  According to news reports, Mexico’s Castañeda immediately said that his country would not challenge Cuba’s human rights record in the annual U.N. vote.  The Associated Press quoted Castañeda as saying, on February 3, “that Mexico would abstain from the April vote in Geneva, as it did last year.”  A subsequent AP report quoted Castañeda as saying “it was likely Mexico would abstain.”  The AP report also said that “Pérez Roque indicated Cuba was quite pleased with what he called Mexico’s ‘categorical affirmation’ that it will not support an upcoming U.N. vote to condemn Cuba for its human rights record.”  The Cuban newspaper Granma (February 4) said Pérez Roque declared “he had a categorical affirmation from the President and foreign minister Jorge Castañeda, that Mexico will not lend itself to any kind of maneuver against Cuba….  (Mexican) officials indicate they will not sponsor or cosponsor, nor participate in any kind of project and initiative, that seeks to manipulate the subject of human rights against (Cuba).”

An aside to the above, following the visit to Cuba the Spanish news agency EFE quoted the now and again contentious Castañeda as saying “Mexico’s relations with the island were no longer ‘with the Cuban revolution but with the Republic of Cuba.’”  Castro responded to the spitting match challenge as only Fidel would, blasting the statement by saying “the Cuban republic could not be divorced from the revolution.”  In his retort to Castañeda, the Mexican news agency Notimex also quoted the fuming Castro: “I do not understand what (Castañeda) wanted to say, as the Republic of Cuba cannot be separated from the Revolution.  I cannot separate Mexico today from the history of a country where hundreds of people die annually crossing into the U.S.A., where millions of undocumented Mexicans live separated from their families.”

Still on human rights violations, Cuban officials were given a list of six “political prisoners” by the Mexicans, with a request for a prompt review of each case as such should lead to each person’s release from imprisonment.  News reports regarding the list created somewhat of a stir, as some journalists quoted Fox (en route home) as saying he personally gave the list to Castro.  When asked about this, Castro said that Fox “did not say anything whatsoever to me about counterrevolutionary prisoners, not once.”  (“Counterrevolutionary” is the term used by the Cuban government for dissidents.)  In reviewing the government’s transcript of what Fox said, a literal translation shows that the president said a list was given to the Cuban government.  Later reports say that the document went from Castañeda to Pérez Roque.

The Mexico City daily El Universal published the identities of the six on the list: Vladimiro Roca Antúnez, political activist, sentenced (1997) for sedition; Francisco Chaviano González, professor and civil rights activist, sentenced (1994) for revealing state secrets; Bernardo Arévalo Padrón, journalist, sentenced (1997) for insulting the chief of state and vice president; Oscar Elías Biscet, doctor and human rights activist, sentenced (1999) for disrespect of the flag and illegal assembly; (the newspaper was not able to reconfirm the final two names supposedly on the list) Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, human rights and university activist for democratic reform, sentenced (2000) for resisting authorities and disrespect; and Pedro Riera Escalante, a former Cuban diplomat, sentenced (1999) for leaking information to the U.S.A. while stationed in Mexico.

Now we get to the flap over Fox and his foreign minister having met with active Cuban dissidents.

In order for a Mexican president to leave the country congress must first grant permission to do so.  And to get said authorization (usually a rubberstamp), the president’s office and/or the foreign ministry will normally furnish congress with the president’s planned schedule.  All of this was done with respect to the Cuba trip, excepting that a meeting was held with opponents of Castro — a meeting that was not listed on the agenda submitted to congress.  Still, the fact that a meeting with well-known dissidents would probably take place was no secret beforehand — but red flags went up among Mexico’s political opposition as Fox’s National Action Party (PAN) and Washington had apparently made it known that Fox should meet with internal Cuban opposition groups.

On Monday morning, prior to leaving Cuba, Fox and Castañeda met with seven “civic-political” activists at the Mexican Embassy for 20 minutes.  The seven were Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz (he met with Green in 1999), Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello, Oswaldo Payá, Raúl Rivero, Héctor Palacio Ruiz, Osvaldo Alfonso and Manuel Costa Morúa.  And while they may be antifidelistas, Castro evidently did not have a problem with the meeting.  Here is what he said (AP and El Universal, February 8).  “Castro said that on the eve of the Monday meeting, Fox told him that Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castañeda planned to meet with a small group of government opponents at the Mexican Embassy in Havana and that Fox himself would greet them….  That was not a reason for any problem.”  Castro’s one criticism (Notimex, February 8): Concern over the fact that the meeting between Fox and the dissidents was emphasized more than the significance of the state visit.

Following the trip, Mexican congressmen leaped at the chance to criticize Fox and Castañeda.  Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) deputy Ildefonso Guajardo questioned if Mexico’s prohibition of interference in the affairs of other nations had been violated, and he extended the point by asking why Fox had not insisted on meeting with Chinese dissidents when he visited that country last year?  Members of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) called for the president to be admonished for not giving his Cuba agenda to congress and for moving away from the principles of non-intervention.  A senator from Fox’s own PAN party, Javier Corral, while calling the Cuba trip important, criticized a wayward Castañeda for having “killed” the official visit by including the meeting of the president with the dissidents (other PAN members lauded the meeting).  The PRD is calling for Castañeda to be brought to account before congress, in order to report on the meeting and any accords that may have been reached with the Cuban dissidents.  In response to the criticisms, Castañeda defended his position by saying that congress had never been deceived.  As well, he stated “that parties like the PRD are not consistent in their questioning of Mexican foreign policy.” (El Universal, February 8.)

U.S. congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart (Republican, Florida) jumped into the fray on February 6, with some cutting anti-Castro remarks and significant revelations regarding a number of issues heretofore mentioned.  The following is the fascinating speech by the Cuba-born congressman, taken from the Congressional Record.

ACTS OF AGGRESSION AGAINST CUBAN DISSIDENT MARTA BEATRIZ ROQUE -- (House of Representatives - February 06, 2002)

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. DIAZ-BALART) is recognized for 5 minutes.

   Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, among the many foreigners who have recently gone to Communist Cuba to meet with the dictator has been the President of Mexico, Vicente Fox.

   He arrived there this last weekend, held the customary long meetings with the dictator; and then, before leaving on Monday, in a gesture that deserves commendation, Mr. Fox and his foreign minister, Mr. Castaneda, invited a small group of dissidents and independent journalists to meet with them at the Mexican embassy.

   Most unfortunately, the foreign minister of the Cuban dictatorship, an immodest man who nonetheless has much to be modest about, announced that Mr. Fox had assured the Cuban dictator that Castro has nothing to fear from Mexico in the upcoming session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where the Cuban dictatorship's record on human rights has been condemned almost every year for the past decade.

   If the statement of the foreign minister of the Cuban dictatorship, Mr. Perez, is true, it would be most unfortunate, since Mr. Fox's election represented a great victory for democracy in Mexico after more than 70 years of a rotating dictatorship in that country. And Mr. Fox was expected by his people and by the international community to be a great leader in defense of democracy.

   Perez of the Cuban dictatorship is not someone who tends to be believable, so we should walk the extra mile, though certainly without illusions, and still give Mr. Fox the benefit of the doubt with regard to what Mexico will do regarding human rights at this spring's meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

   What will Mr. Fox do, considering what happened to one of the most respected dissidents in Cuba, Marta Beatriz Roque, after she attended the meeting with President Fox at the Mexican embassy in Havana this past Monday? Of the opposition figures within Cuba, there is no one more respected nor deserving of respect than this Cuban woman, an economist by training and director of the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists, Marta Beatriz Roque.

   She, along with imprisoned opposition activists who suffered the most brutal aspects of the totalitarian repression of the dictatorship, is admired by all freedom-loving Cubans, as well as by supporters of democracy for Cuba throughout the world.

   Well, on the night of the day of her meeting with President Fox and Foreign Minister Castaneda, just this last Monday, Marta Beatriz Roque was visited at her house by a typical array of goons, thugs and hoodlums sent by the dictator who told her that she had to accompany them to a detention center for questioning while her house was fumigated.

   She was then taken to a detention center by these thugs, physically assaulted, strip-searched and insulted repeatedly for hours on end. While this was happening, the so-called fumigation was taking place at her house. The furniture and windows were destroyed, and Marta Beatriz Roque's few belongings were ransacked.

   Marta Beatriz Roque's crime? She had met that morning with President Fox and Foreign Minister Castaneda, and she had spoken bravely in support of democracy for Cuba.

   So what will President Fox do about this? The act of aggression against Marta Beatriz Roque was a way for the Cuban dictator to show his disdain and contempt for President Fox and Foreign Minister Castaneda, as well as for the Cuban people, whose democratic aspirations are thoroughly represented by Marta Beatriz Roque.

   What will you do, President Fox and Foreign Minister Castaneda? Will you do as Castro's Foreign Minister says and fail even to acknowledge the gross and constant violations of human rights in Cuba when the United Nations Human Rights Commission discusses this issue in Geneva in the coming weeks, or will you do what you should do and condemn this atrocity against one of your guests at the Mexican Embassy in Cuba this past Monday?

   What will the world do, Mr. Speaker? What will our colleagues in this Congress do? One of them showed his feelings on the subject of the oppression of Cuba by allowing a member of the delegation that he traveled to Cuba with recently to give the Cuban dictator a cap like the one worn by the New York Fire Department. That symbol of American heroism, of supreme American dignity, was given to the dictator who for more than four decades has imprisoned, tortured, exiled and executed those who fight for the freedoms which this country represents.

   The gift of that cap to the dictator and the attitude that it reflects is grotesque. It is insulting not only to the Cuban people, but to Americans as well, and it is condemnable.

   It is time to stop dining and joking with the Cuban dictator. The time has come to side with the oppressed people of Cuba. They will soon be free, but they deserve solidarity in their time of darkness.