|
By Andres Oppenheimer. aoppenheimer@herald.com. Posted on
Sat, Mar. 23, 2002 in The Miami
Herald
MONTERREY, Mexico - A summit of more than 52 world leaders that was hailed
by most participants as a major breakthrough in the war on poverty ended Friday
with a public dispute between Mexico and Cuba that stole some of the limelight
away from the meeting's final agreement.
The two-day summit attended by President Bush and European, Latin American
and African heads of state ended with a commitment from rich countries to
substantially increase their aid to the world's poorest countries in exchange
for their adherence to free-market policies, political liberties and respect for
human rights.
The ''Monterrey Consensus,'' as the final document was called, prompted a
commitment by the Bush administration to increase U.S. foreign assistance by $5
billion over the next three years, and a vow by the 15-country European Union to
step up its foreign aid by $4 billion a year immediately.
'REVERSAL'
''This summit not only marked a reversal in recent foreign aid trends, which
had been stagnant or falling,'' Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda
said. "It is also the first conference of its kind where there hasn't been
one single arrest, detention or injured among protesters.''
But by the time the final agreement drafted weeks in advance was officially
approved, many of the 1,750 journalists covering the summit were writing about
Cuban president Fidel Castro's sudden departure at mid-day Thursday, and about
his regime's contention that the Bush administration had pressured Mexico -- the
summit's host -- to exclude Castro from the meetings to be attended by Bush.
At a joint press conference with Mexican President Vicente Fox on Friday
evening, Bush accused Castro of turning Cuba into ''a place of repression, a
place where people have no hope.'' But he denied playing a role in Castro's
early exit.
In a statement that irked Mexican officials, Cuba's National Assembly
president, Ricardo Alarcón, who was leading the Cuban delegation after
Castro left, charged that "high-ranking officials of the Mexican government
told us before the summit about the pressures they were being subjected to by
the United States to exclude Cuba from the meeting, and specifically to keep
President Castro from heading our delegation.''
In an interview, Castañeda repeated his assertion Friday that there
had been no pressure from the U.S. government. Other Mexican officials said that
Bush administration officials had only asked that Castro and Bush be placed on
opposite sides of the room if they were in the same meeting. Late Friday, the
Mexican government issued a statement reaffirming the absence of U.S. pressures
and challenging Cuba to name the ''high-ranking Mexican officials'' to whom
Alarcón referred.
AGHAST
Mexican officials were aghast by Cuba's reaction Friday, which was bound to
result in a chorus of criticism from leftist newspapers in Mexico City that the
Fox government is selling out to U.S. foreign policy interests.
One Mexican official, noting that the summit's ground-breaking consensus to
fight poverty and the presence here of 52 heads of state and more than 150 top
cabinet ministers is a major diplomatic victory for the Fox administration, said
that Castro "was the party pooper, and we're definitely not happy with
that.''
| 
