From staff and wire reports. CNN.
February 6, 2001. Web posted at: 11:38 p.m. EST (0438 GMT)
HAVANA, Cuba -- Cuban President Fidel Castro, who has spent more than 40
years exchanging verbal barbs with the United States, has been expanding his
range of targets since the first of the year, launching several tirades against
other countries.
The latest target is Argentina.
Monday's edition of the official Communist Party Daily, Granma, published
for the first time remarks made by Castro several days earlier, in which he
blasted the Argentine government for allegedly doing anything to obtain U.S.
support for loans from international lending institutions.
"Now they need almost $40 billion more: That's licking the boots of the
Yankees," said Castro
The Cuban leader accused Buenos Aires of planning to vote against Cuba at
the upcoming U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva, in exchange for
Washington's support in obtaining a crucial economic bailout package from
international lending institutions.
"It doesn't make me angry," Castro said sarcastically. "Rather
it makes us feel like laughing, or it makes us feel pity, because one realizes
how weak, how submissive and desperate they are. Under that type of non-liberal
policy, it's impossible for even a government to bear such shame and dishonor."
Buenos Aires has reacted by recalling its ambassador, canceling an upcoming
trade mission to Havana and accusing Castro of offending Argentina and its
people.
Argentina only the latest target
Argentina was only the latest in a series of targets for Castro's wrath.
The Cuban leader began the year attacking several Spanish diplomats who
dressed up as the three wise men and drove down the streets of Havana, throwing
candy to nearby children.
This, said Castro, was a humiliating and offensive spectacle.
Then came the arrest of two prominent Czech citizens, one a parliamentarian,
who were accused of subversion after meeting with two Cuban dissidents.
Their detention helped further sour relations with Prague, once a close
ally, and provoked the wrath of the European Union, which demanded the Czechs be
released.
That crisis was defused Monday night when the Czechs signed a 'mea culpa'
admitting they had broken Cuban law, albeit unwittingly. After the apology, they
were allowed to go home to Prague, just as the new feud with Buenos Aires was
erupting.
Targets have one thing in common
One thing the targets of Castro's attacks have in common is that last year
they all voted in favor of a U.S.-sponsored motion at the U.N. Human Rights
Commission in Geneva to censure Havana for its human rights record. The vote
infuriated Castro.
It is no secret that Washington lobbies its allies every year to vote
against Cuba. With a new vote coming in April, some Cuba watchers and diplomats
in Havana believe that this year Castro anticipates a repeat performance and is
taking the view that the best defense is a good offense.
Diplomatic disputes are nothing new for Cuba, since the early days of
Castro's 1959 revolution, after which the whole of the Americas, with the
exception of Mexico, broke formal ties with Havana.
"Remember, Fidel's a born fighter, a master at war or in politics,"
a Latin American diplomat said. "He might not admit it, but he thrives on
these antagonistic situations."
Perhaps underpinning recent events is Cuba's renewed sense of political
strength, both at home and abroad, in the wake of its successful fight last year
to bring home young shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez from the United States.
Even protests over the detained Czechs from the European Union -- a crucial
economic partner for Cuba -- failed to change Cuba's insistence on an apology
prior to a solution.
Cuba feeling confident
"I do really detect a strong confidence here at the moment," said
British-based Cuba specialist Antoni Kapcia.
As the world well knows, Cuba's No. 1 enemy of the last four decades has
been its "imperialist" neighbor, the United States, whose economic
embargo has failed to topple Castro.
But even Mexico -- traditionally Cuba's most unconditional ally in Latin
America and the nation from which Castro launched his Granma yacht to start the
Cuban revolution -- has had a couple of diplomatic skirmishes of late with
Havana.
Castro recently lamented that Mexico was a "different" nation, its
independence compromised by its commercial ties to the United States. That
followed Mexico's unprecedented meeting with anti-Castro dissidents on Cuban
soil in 1999.
Another nation to suffer Cuba's wrath in recent months was El Salvador,
which was accused of knowingly sheltering anti-Communist Cuban exile Luis Posada
Carriles, who was arrested at the recent Ibero-American summit in Panama after
Castro denied he was planning to assassinate him.
To complete the picture, Castro also criticized the other leaders from the
19-nation group -- including Spain and Portugal -- for their "neoliberal
affinity."
Havana Bureau Chief Lucia Newman and Reuters contributed to this report.
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