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The Miami Herald.
Posted on Wed, Apr. 24, 2002
Mexico's response to Cuba's Castro
Cuba's Fidel Castro on Monday released a secretly recorded tape of a private
conversation that he and Mexican President Vicente Fox had regarding Castro's
attendance at the Monterrey Summit in March. Here are excerpts from the Mexican
government's response.
• The government of Mexico clarifies that the conversation improperly
released by the president of Cuba speaks for itself. Because President Fox at no
moment asked his counterpart not to attend the Monterrey Summit, despite the
security and logistics problems implied by a last-minute announcement.
• The government of Mexico considers unacceptable the violation by
Cuban authorities of the privacy of the conversation between both leaders,
thereby breaking an agreement of trust and good faith.
• The government of Mexico neither records nor releases the content of
conversations, much less those previously agreed to be private.
• The president of Cuba accepted the agreed modalities for
participation, which he could have rejected. At the end of the conversation,
both leaders said goodbye ``as friends.''
• As demonstrated in the conversation, Mexico was subject to no
suggestion or pressure whatsoever conditioning the participation of the
president of Cuba at Monterrey. President Fox limited himself to asking his
Cuban counterpart to show the other guests a minimum of courtesy, just as he
asked the other participants to show the same courtesy to the Cuban president.
• On the other hand, the only government that put pressure on Mexico to
decide its vote in Geneva on the situation of human rights in Cuba was the
government of Havana.
• The terms of the relationship between Mexico and Cuba are determined
exclusively by Mexicans. It is inadmissible for Havana to continue seeking to
involve itself in internal debates in Mexico.
• The government of Cuba clearly shows that democracy today prevails in
Mexico:
• Critics of the government have access to the mass media to criticize
the regime.
• There are opposition parties that disagree with the government's
position.
• There is a separation of powers and an independent Congress that
demands the executive take certain stances.
• Opponents of the Mexican government can travel freely to Cuba and
meet whomever they so desire.
• Mexico is open to foreign scrutiny in human rights and welcomes it.
• In Mexico, as in most democracies, the recording of telephone
conversations without the parties' knowledge or consent is forbidden.
In Cuba, none of this is the case. We Mexicans regret that.
The government of Mexico, regardless of anecdotes and episodes such as this
one, will continue with its diplomatic relations with Cuba, with the same
respect that all countries with which Mexico maintains relations deserve.
Faced with foreign lies and offenses, this is a moment for all Mexicans to
unite, above ideologies and party interests.
Southcom to yield Cuba role to new command
Other Latin functions will stay
By Carol Rosenberg. crosenberg@herald.com.
Pentagon planners have carved Cuba out of the rest of Latin America in a new
defense plan that concentrates on homeland defense from headquarters in
Colorado, The Herald has learned.
Under the new Unified Command Plan, established in response to the Sept. 11
attacks, the Southern Command, based just west of Miami, will be responsible for
territory south of Cuba starting in October. A Northern Command will have
jurisdiction over U.S. military activities from Canada to Cuba, including the
U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay.
COVERING THE COASTS
''It's messy and everyone recognizes that,'' said a senior Defense
Department official in Washington. ''But they wanted to have a sense of covering
the approaches'' to the United States from the sea.
The transfer is not expected to take place immediately upon creation of
Northcom in October. Southcom could for about two years continue to supervise
military operations at the base called Gitmo, officials said, including the new
offshore prison project for international terror suspects.
''If I were the Northcom CINC [commander in chief], the last thing I would
want to be worried about right now is getting entangled in Cuban issues,'' said
the defense official.
The switch surprised some regional specialists.
''Southcom does have some Latin American expertise and some of them do speak
Spanish,'' said former U.S. Ambassador Ambler H. Moss Jr., director of The
North-South Center at the University of Miami. Putting Cuba under Northcom "makes
as little sense as anything I can think of.''
''Southcom's got jurisdiction over things in the Caribbean. If you're going
to worry about a situation in the Caribbean, as far as security threats,
international crime, tracking drug planes or illegal migration, Cuba is part of
the Caribbean,'' he said. "That astounds me. They haven't thought it out at
all.''
ROLES DIVIDED
At Southcom headquarters in Doral this week, officials awaited final word on
the division of responsibilities. Air Force Maj. Eduardo Villavicencio, a
spokesman, said his understanding was that Northcom would handle any future
contact with Cuban armed forces in Havana and Southcom would still supervise the
U.S. Navy base.
''I don't think Cuba's going to be a big deal,'' said Villavicencio. "DOD
[the Department of Defense] doesn't per se have a lot of dealings with the
government of Cuba.''
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced the new command plan last week,
laying to rest questions about the immediate future of the Pentagon's Miami
outpost. Southcom survives as a strong entity run by a four-star general and a
Northcom will be set up, probably at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
An earlier proposal considered creation of an America's Command stretching
from Canada to Argentina that would have diminished the role of Southcom,
perhaps using a two-star general for contacts with Latin American and Caribbean
counterparts.
Rumsfeld did not spell out that Cuba would be included in the new Northcom
turf, which officials said included the United States, Canada, Mexico and some
U.S. territories in the Caribbean.
Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who was 1994-96 commander of Southcom,
said Monday that he ''hadn't heard a hint of'' the idea to exclude Cuba from
Southcom. But, he said, he could argue both sides.
''It probably makes pretty decent sense because you're going to have to
coordinate local law enforcement, local health-care providers when Castro
dies,'' he said. "Florida and the Gulf Coast states at every level will be
engaged with the significant probability of a huge exodus from Cuba.
"Probably having Northern Command view Cuba as inside the envelope is
not a bad idea. You've got to draw the line somewhere.''
BORDER ISSUES
McCaffrey suggested the decision was driven more by migration and border
issues than the notion that Northcom would guard waters around the United
States. ''I think it's more than the approaches. I think it's saying we're all
sitting in the same bathtub with Mexico, Cuba and Canada'' on immigration
matters.
McCaffrey was a key player in 1995 in getting the Caribbean transferred to
Southcom's authority from the Atlantic Command, based in Norfolk, Va. That
coincided with Southcom's move to Miami as the United States ceded territory to
Panama with the return of the Canal Zone.
Advocates of integrating the Caribbean argued that there were regional
issues such as drug trafficking and migration that needed to be minded from one
headquarters.
Some opponents wondered whether Southcom would be subject to local pressure
in Miami's highly charged Cuban and Haitian politics. Since then, successive
commanders of Southcom have kept relatively low profiles in Miami, sometimes
addressing local business leaders but steering clear of local controversy.
A congressional staffer with special interest in Southcom also said that the
move likely meant that Northcom would concentrate on migration and border issues
as part of its mission to enhance homeland defense.
Manatee County, Cuban town agree to cultural exchange
TAMPA, Fla. - (AP) -- Manatee County and the Cuban town of Manati will be
sister communities under an agreement to promote cultural ties, a supporter of
the plan said.
Under the ''Manatee to Manati'' plan, the two communities will create
cultural, educational, athletic and professional exchanges to foster better
relations between Cubans and Americans, said Steve Rupert, a Tampa mediator who
has worked for the agreement.
''It's a cultural exchange group, not a business group,'' Rupert told The
Tampa Tribune on Tuesday. "It's people to people. It's not about
governments.''
Manati approved the agreement on April 10, while Manatee County agreed to
the exchange in December, he said.
Since 1993, cultural agreements have linked at least 12 U.S. cities with
sister cities in Cuba, but none has involved Florida.
Rupert said he will travel to Cuba in three weeks to begin working out
details of the exchange program.
U.S. sues to stop sale of JFK's Cuban missile crisis map
From Herald staff and wire reports
NEW YORK - The federal government sued Monday to stop a website operator
from selling a Cuban missile crisis map used by President John F. Kennedy and
civil rights documents that may have been improperly removed by Kennedy's
personal secretary.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Ward temporarily blocked the sale until a
hearing scheduled for next week.
Gary Zimet, operator of the site, has advertised being the exclusive seller
of a map and its original envelope identified as: ``Cuban Missile Crisis Map
With JFK's Handwritten Annotations Indicating Locations of Russian Missile Sites
October 16, 962.''
''What happened is that the government wants to steal this map from me,''
said an agitated Zimet, who spoke to The Herald on Monday night by telephone
from New York.
He said he had been besieged by calls from national news organizations on
Monday after the lawsuit was filed.
Publicity about the map, first detailed in The Herald in February, also had
Zimet's phone ringing a couple of months ago.
In its arguments, the government said Evelyn Lincoln -- the personal
secretary who worked for the White House on Kennedy's papers until July 1964 --
also compiled annotated and handwritten notes for the President Kennedy Library
Corp. until at least 1972.
The map and civil rights documents were donated to the United States in
February 1965 for deposit in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the
government said.
''It appears that Evelyn Lincoln improperly removed the map from the custody
and control of the United States'' and later gave, sold or bequeathed it to
Robert L. White, a private collector of Kennedy memorabilia, the lawsuit states.
It did not suggest that Lincoln, who died in 1995, had done anything criminally
wrong.
''Whatever path the map may have traveled, it nevertheless falls squarely
within the deed of gift and rightfully belongs to the United States,'' the
government wrote. | 
