The Providence Journal.
12.1.2000
When Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox, is sworn into office in Mexico
City today, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro will be on hand for the festivities. But
with the change in Mexico's government, Mr. Castro may be surprised to observe
real change in Cuban-Mexican relations.
For years, Mexico's long-ruling party, the social democratic Institutional
Revolutionary Party, has been friendly to Mr. Castro and his communist
revolution. But Vicente Fox, a former rancher and Coca-Cola executive, ended the
PRI's long tenure in office as the candidate of the pro-business, right-leaning
National Action Party. Mr. Fox is roughly the Mexican equivalent of a U.S.
Republican, and that's not good news for Cuba. For while Mr. Fox has expressed
admiration for Cuba's health-care and social-service systems, he has called
repeatedly for a peaceful transition toward democracy on the island. Moreover,
Mexico's new foreign minister, a converted Marxist academic (and op-ed
contributor) named Jorge Casta eda, is an outspoken critic of human-rights
abuses in Cuba, and Mr. Castro's repressive dictatorship. He has even written a
critical biography of one of communist Cuba's secular saints, Ch Guevara!
Of course, this does not mean that Mexico is bound to become antagonistic
toward Cuba overnight. But it does mean that Mexico will be looking at Cuba
through some lens other than hemispheric solidarity. Latin American governments
have often savored Fidel Castro's role as a thorn in the side of the United
States. But life in Cuba is a serious, and tragic, reality; and President Fox's
commitment to democracy, economic freedom and human rights puts this
hemisphere's surviving communist dictatorship on notice: It's time for a change.
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