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Castro goes unanswered at Monterrey summit center
Andres Oppenheimer. Posted on Thu, Mar. 28, 2002 in
The
Miami Herald.
MONTERREY, Mexico - If President Bush did not convince many Latin Americans
about the wisdom of U.S. policies during his four-day trip to Mexico, Peru and
El Salvador last week, it may be because he did not try very hard, or because he
did not try at all.
In fact, Bush's performance at the Monterrey anti-poverty summit of more
than 50 heads of state was a case study of why the United States often loses the
propaganda war abroad. It is because the White House press machine devotes its
entire energies to the U.S. media, and often does not even talk to the foreign
press.
Consider what happened at Monterrey. President Fidel Castro of Cuba showed
up at the summit a day before Bush, and made a fiery speech attacking the
summit's U.S.-backed agreement whereby rich countries will increase their
foreign aid to poor nations that follow free market policies and respect human
rights.
Castro blamed the United States and other rich nations for carrying out a
''true genocide'' against the world's poor. Several Middle Eastern, African and
Venezuelan officials applauded wildly.
I was watching the speech at the summit's international press center,
together with more than 1,000 journalists from Latin America, Europe, Asia and
Africa. Many of them
were excited: After many boring speeches, they had a headline. Within
seconds, Cuban officials were passing out copies of Castro's speech in half a
dozen languages.
One could have expected the Bush administration to send a U.S. official to
the press center, where visiting dignitaries gave press conferences all day
long, to call Castro's bluff.
It would have been easy. All the U.S. official needed to say was that
Castro's references to the shocking levels of world poverty were absolutely
true, but that if the Cuban leader had solutions to overcome poverty, his people
would not be taking to the sea to escape the island, nor would they take foreign
embassies by force to seek asylum, nor would Cuba have one of the lowest average
incomes in Latin America.
But I did not see a top White House or State Department official show up at
the international press center after Castro's speech. By comparison, the
presidents of Mexico, Spain, Venezuela and top officials of Cuba offered
back-to-back press conferences.
HEADLINES IN MEXICO
Predictably, Castro's tirade made front-page headlines in the Mexican press
the next morning. Castro's claims went unchallenged, except for a State
Department statement in Washington that was never distributed at the summit's
international press center.
Where were Bush and the top White House officials traveling with him? They
were across town, at the Inter-Continental Hotel, where the Bush administration
had its separate press room for the 300 U.S. journalists accompanying the
president. There, U.S. officials briefed reporters from back home around the
clock.
DELIBERATE CHOICE
That night, when I asked a Bush Cabinet member why the Bush administration
had not responded to Castro, the official told me, "We didn't want to
dignify him with an answer.''
Big mistake. If all that Bush tried to achieve in Latin America was to win
U.S. Hispanic votes for the Republican Party in the November congressional
elections, he may have done the right thing in limiting press briefings to the
U.S. media. But if Bush really wants to win the hearts and minds of foreigners
in his campaign against terrorism, he should start by paying more attention to
the foreign press.
LONG NEGLECT
To be fair, Bush's predecessors have been equally neglectful of foreign
media. The White House has always set up a separate pressroom for U.S.
journalists at international summits, far away from where reporters of the rest
of the world were located, projecting an image of secrecy, arrogance and -- as
some Latin American journalists see it -- discrimination.
''The White House press office cares mostly about American reporters,
because they are the ones reaching the people who will vote in the next U.S.
elections,'' says Richard Feinberg, a former Clinton White House specialist on
Latin American affairs.
That is understandable. But if U.S. officials are serious about improving
the U.S. image abroad, they should start speaking to foreign journalists, or
else stop complaining about unfair treatment from the foreign press. The fact
is, most foreign reporters never get to hear the U.S. side of the story. | 
