By Laurie Goering. Tribune foreign correspondent.
Chicago Tribune. May 5, 2001
HAVANA -- For a man who at one time had no diplomatic ambitions, Ricardo
Pascoe now has a big one: Bringing the United States and Cuba to the negotiating
table.
"It's nonsense that Cuba and the United States can't find minimal
common ground to discuss the problems between them," said Pascoe, Mexico's
outspoken new ambassador to Cuba.
For years, he said, U.S. and Cuban allies have cringed from the sidelines as
the two warring nations have rhetorically pounded each other. But last month's
vote to condemn Cuba at the United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting in
Geneva was the last straw, he said.
The two battling sides applied unprecedented diplomatic pressure, demanding
the votes of allies and neutral nations. When Cuba lost, failing to stop the
condemnation by two votes, its officials lashed out, including at some of the
island's closest neighbors and trade partners.
For voting in favor of the resolution, England was accused of "perfidy,"
Germany of "fascism." Cuban officials said France had lost its
cultural identity to U.S. hegemony. Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Argentina,
Spain and Sweden also took hits; Costa Rica's ambassador took the next plane
home in protest.
Pascoe, 50, was disturbed. "We have hit an all-time low with this
Geneva business."
"The vote demonstrates the lengths to which the U.S.-Cuba conflict has
gone. Basically nothing gets solved and more and more countries are dragged into
the conflict. It's time to rethink this tortuous relationship."
In an embarrassing blow to American influence abroad, the United States on
Thursday was voted off the UN Human Rights Commission for the first time since
its founding in 1947. The unexpected vote was thought to reflect growing
frustration with America's attitude toward international organizations and
programs.
Pascoe, a diplomat's son who long swore he would never follow in his
father's footsteps, has some interesting credentials for taking on perhaps the
toughest diplomatic challenge in the hemisphere.
'Good understanding'
A longtime Mexican leftist, he has known Fidel Castro for years and has met
repeatedly with him since taking the Cuba job earlier this year.
"We have a good understanding," Pascoe said of the Cuban leader. "We've
talked about just about everything," from economics to Cuba's future
political transition.
Pascoe is a longtime friend of Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda, who
recommended him for the post. Those old leftist ties give him direct access to
President Vicente Fox, whose politically ecumenical administration shows every
sign of having the warmest relations with the United States in decades.
"I think the U.S. has faith in Mexico," Pascoe said. "It's
shown itself to be a proper ally."
Pascoe is the son of an American mother, a philosophy graduate of New York
University and a fluent English speaker. Whether that might translate into a
relationship with President Bush remains to be seen.
A former union leader, economics professor and Mexico City administrator,
Pascoe already has had some practice negotiating political transitions.
When Pascoe was offered the Cuba ambassadorship, Mexico's Fox had just
trounced Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the longtime presidential candidate of the leftist
Democratic Revolution Party--the party Pascoe helped found. His colleagues
debated 10 hours before finally deciding not to exile Pascoe from the party for
jumping ship.
"I listened to all kinds of insulting remarks about me and my
personality. I found out I had really few friends," he remembers, laughing.
Pascoe begins his quixotic diplomatic campaign to get Cuba and the United
States talking at a less than auspicious time.
Mexico-Cuba relations, slowly cooling for years as U.S.-Mexico relations
warm, have sunk to their most frigid level in decades with the election of Fox,
a political conservative.
Mexico, which abstained as usual from last month's Geneva vote, nonetheless
noted that it was deeply troubled by human-rights violations on the island.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque in turn accused Mexico of aiding the
U.S. push to pass the censure measure.
Strong words
Mexico's Castaneda, a longtime leftist, "is susceptible to pressures
from the United States. . . . He is dazzled by their power, and he has a
well-known political history of disloyalties," Perez Roque charged.
For Mexico, which sheltered an exiled Castro before his 1959 revolution and
traditionally has been Cuba's strongest ally, always opposing the U.S. embargo
on the island, those have been strong words.
In Washington, the administration shows no sign of seeking a warming of
relations with Havana until Castro is gone or allows democratic elections.
"Our policy is to promote a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba
and develop a concerted multilateral effort to promote democracy and human
rights," said Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman.
While "we work closely and consult with Mexico on a lot of things, our
Cuba policy is long-standing," he said. "We would be prepared to
respond [only] if Cuba undertook fundamental systematic change."
Castro, who has spent most of the past year strengthening and revamping
Cuba's socialist system to survive his death, has no interest in moving toward
the kind of change the U.S. seeks.
By demonizing each other, both nations have gained political ground at home.
"The inability to come together has attended the needs of both sides,"
Pascoe said.
So how might the two be persuaded to talk? Perhaps if allies refuse to take
part in what Pascoe calls this "infernal dynamic." He envisions a
protest at next year's Geneva vote if the two warring sides refuse to tone down
their pressure campaigns.
"When human rights become a political game of pitting one state against
another, I can't see how they benefit from this process," he said. "It
just doesn't make sense." | 