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In
Rift With Mexico, Cuba Is the Loser
Commentary, Louis Nevaer,
Pacific
News Service, May 24, 2004.
Editor's Note: Fidel
Castro's verbal attacks on Mexico, following
Mexico's criticism of Cuba's human rights
record, threaten to isolate Havana from
the rest of Latin America as never before.
MERIDA, Mexico--What the United States
could not do in more than 40 years, Fidel
Castro has managed to achieve in a matter
of a few weeks: Cuba's rift with Mexico
threatens to isolate Havana from the rest
of Latin America as never before.
The diplomatic meltdown is the result of
Mexico's vote at the United Nations in Geneva
criticizing Cuba's human rights record.
Castro lashed out, calling the Fox administration
a "mafia at the beck and call of Washington."
Fox replied that Mexico was being true to
its principled position in defense of human
rights, everywhere. Mexico's vote, he explained,
was in "favor of one cause (human rights),
not against a nation, which has deserved
and will deserve our respect and support."
In the weeks since, Cuba's criticisms grew
in ferocity. "Mexico has joined the
policy in support of the U.S. trade embargo
and participates in the aggressions of the
government of the United States against
Cuba," Cuban Chancellor Felipe Pérez
Roque said.
Cuba's vitriolic attacks on Mexico's Fox
continued, to the point where both nations
recalled their ambassadors, severing the
most important diplomatic mission in Havana
since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The crisis in Mexico-Cuba relations stunned
Latin Americans. No other nation has extended
to Cuba the kindness -- and political and
economic support -- that Mexico has during
the more than four decades of the American
trade embargo.
At the height of the Cold War in 1961,
President John F. Kennedy sought to retaliate
against Castro by breaking diplomatic relations
and imposing a trade embargo the following
year. When the Kennedy administration persuaded
the Organization of American States (OAS)
to expel Cuba from its membership, every
Latin American nation dutifully followed
Washington's lead and broke off diplomatic
relations with Havana -- except Mexico.
Throughout the 1960s, whenever the United
States tried to isolate Cuba, Mexico would
go out of its way to sponsor Cuba at international
forums. When Washington imposed a trade
embargo, Mexico nurtured free trade with
the island nation. When American administrations
sought to impose hardships on the Cuban
people, a succession of Mexican presidents
donated oil to Havana as a form of foreign
aid. Through Cuba, Mexico demonstrated independence
from its powerful northern neighbor.
Then, throughout the 1970s and '80s, Mexico
persuaded other Latin American nations to
quietly re-establish their relations with
Cuba, pressure from Washington notwithstanding.
And though Cuba's chief sponsor was the
Soviet Union, Mexico was second in terms
of foreign investment, trade and economic
aid. When the Soviet Union disintegrated,
Mexico -- along with Spain -- emerged as
Cuba's savior: Cuba's cellular telephony
was built by the Mexicans, Cuban hotels
are run by the Spanish and it is Mexico
that sends hundreds of thousands of dollar-bearing
tourists to Cuba each year. Mexico's private
sector has $2.7 billion invested in Cuba,
and Havana's foreign debt to the Mexican
government is $425 million, a sore point
in Mexico.
But there has been a fundamental change
in Mexico, and in Mexican foreign policy,
since 2000.
The election of Vicente Fox, whose National
Action Party ended the PRI's political monopoly
on the Mexican presidency, means Mexico
can now speak with greater confidence and
with more robust, democratic credentials.
As a consequence, Mexico is pursuing a
more uniform foreign policy, one built on
non-intervention and the defense of human
rights. Mexico has therefore:
--Sued the United States, and won, at the
World Court in the Hague to protest Washington's
refusal to comply with the requirements
of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations,
a lapse that has sent Mexican citizens to
death rows across the United States;
--Refused to vote in favor of a U.N. Security
Council resolution authorizing the use of
force in Iraq, even after the Bush administration
offered a quid pro quo deal on immigration;
--Voted to criticize in international forums
Cuba's deplorable human rights records and
the systematic imprisonment of dissidents.
Throughout the current crisis, Mexico maintains
its position remains centered on respecting
human rights. In Mexico City, Interior Minister
Santiago Creel said the current crisis "is
not between our peoples, but between our
governments" of Cuba and Mexico.
For Cuba, Mexico has always been a lifeline
to the outside world. Today, more than 70
percent of all of Cuba's economic trade
with the world goes through Mexico, from
saltine crackers to cell phones, Coca-Cola
to Dell PCs.
This vital trade is now threatened.
Mexican officials are going to extraordinary
lengths to engage the Cubans in dialogue.
Good relations with Cuba are a vital national
security issue for Mexico, which fears that
civil disorder after Castro dies could subject
Mexico to a flood of refugees. Mexico wants
diplomats on the ground in Cuba to help
monitor and even influence the situation.
For now, the crisis has become a diplomatic
impasse. Mexicans remain astonished that
a country they have stood by so steadfastly
remains so intransigent. It's a tragic turn
of events straight out of Shakespeare: "Oh,
sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to
have a thankless child."
PNS contributor Louis
E.V. Nevaer (nevaer1@hotmail.com) is an
author and economist whose most recent book,
"NAFTA'S Second Decade" (South-Western
Educational Publishing, 2004), examines
the political economy of the international
development and trade.
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