Is Castro Finally Losing It?

Conflict with Mexican President Further Isolates Dictator
Is Castro Finally Losing It?
By James Whelan

Signs are that the 75-year-old Fidel Castro is losing it. Temper tantrums have lately replaced sly cunning in Cuba’s public policy. Since nothing of consequence happens in Cuba—surely nothing involving the government—without Castro’s OK, Cuba=Castro.

In his 43 years in power, Castro has had no more faithful ally than Mexico—the only country in Latin America that never broke diplomatic relations with him. The current Mexican president, Vicente Fox, has been no exception, making plain from the start that he would allow nothing to stand in the way of continued, cordial ties to Cuba. For a Mexican politician, to stake out such a position is about as brave as an American endorsing motherhood and apple pie.

Fox made plain his fealty in February, when he became the first Mexican president in nearly eight years to visit Cuba. For days in advance of his visit, Fox weaseled and waffled over whether he would be able to find time to visit with the island’s handful of valiant dissidents.

Finally, he did squeeze in a 20-minute visit behind the closed doors of the Mexican Embassy in Havana with seven of them. By contrast, besides extended private meetings, he had time to stroll the streets of Havana with Castro, both beaming broadly for photographers.

"The relations between our governments are deep and solid," Fox said in a speech in a government palace, "and have endured the toughest tests."

That was in February. In late March, Fox hosted world leaders at a UN conference on poverty in Monterrey, Mexico. Among them was Fidel Castro, who flew in on a Thursday and flew out—fuming—the same day. Typically, Castro seeks to arrive early and stay late, grandstanding for local audiences and posturing for the fawning major media.

No sooner back in Havana than Castro charged that Mexico had caved in to U.S. pressure to get him out of town before George Bush arrived. When Mexico’s foreign minister, Jorge Castañeda, denied it, the Cubans called Castañeda a liar, a hypocrite and "the diabolical and cynical architect" of the episode. For good measure, the official mouthpiece, Granma, published photos of Castañeda—a Communist in his youth—undergoing training at one of Cuba’s guerrilla warfare camps back in the 1960s.

Castañeda—and Fox—had a chance to prove their Fidel-ity a few days later when 21 Cubans commandeered a bus and crashed through the gates of the Mexican embassy in Havana, seeking asylum. Castañeda very nearly went ballistic when the asylum-seekers said they were encouraged to do so by a report on the U.S.-run Radio Marti of an interview with him.

According to the station’s report, Castañeda supposedly had said that Mexico would grant refuge to any Cuban who showed up at the embassy.

Not only did Castañeda hotly deny ever saying any such thing, but Mexico asked Cuba to bring "a large deployment of public forces" to ring their embassy. A few days later, denied asylum by Mexico, the 21 men were ousted. A Mexican diplomat said, "What the Cuban authorities do now is for them to decide and is none of our affair."

Still, Castro evidently was still steaming over Monterrey, and especially when Mexico joined a number of other Latin American nations in supporting a namby-pamby resolution before the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Instead of condemning Cuba—as in the past—this one called for appointment of a human rights observer to do an on-site inspection on the island. (Over the past several years when the commission did vote to condemn Cuba, Mexico either voted against those motions, or abstained).

In proposing an inspection, the Latins knew that Castro has never allowed any such inspection and, indeed, the ink was barely dry on the resolution when Castro snarled that he would allow no inspectors this time, either.

The first to feel Castro’s wrath was the President of Uruguay—the country that initiated the wet-spaghetti resolution. Castro called him "a U.S. bootlicker, shameless lackey, carouser and an abject Judas." (Curiously, Castro—like another atheist before him, Josef Stalin—uses a name taken from the very essence of Christianity.) Uruguay promptly broke diplomatic relations with Cuba, the first Latin country to do so in decades.

Earlier, Castro’s ambassador in Geneva warned Latin American countries that Cuba would "take measures" against any country that voted to condemn Cuba for its wretched record on human rights—this at a time when Latin America cozies up to Castro at every opportunity.

But the big bombshell was reserved for last week. Castro summoned news media to publicly accuse Mexico’s Fox of lying in denying that he had been pressured to get Castro out of Monterrey. Flat-out lying.

To twist the knife even more, Castro played an obviously sneak tape recording of a March 19 telephone conversation with Fox—two days before the Monterrey conference was to open—in which Fox is heard to ask Castro to limit his visit to one day. As a sop to Castro, Fox told him he could sit next to him, in the position of honor, at a welcoming luncheon Fox was giving for the visiting heads of government and other luminaries—but only provided that Castro then high-tailed it our of town. To stick around, Fox said, would only cause "a goodly number of problems."

Fox had joined Castañeda—and President Bush—in denying that there had been any U.S. pressure to get Castro out of town. In his news conference this week, Castro said that "they all lie every which way."

He then challenged Fox to follow his example: Castro said he would step down from the power he has held for 43 years if it could be shown that he had falsified the March 19 conversation. "I would like to believe," he said, "that the authors of so many lies and of the colossal lie with which they would deceive the Mexican people and world opinion would have the guts to react with my dignity and sense of honor."

Calling another President a liar is serious business. Calling one of the few active allies one has a liar is a piece of political folly of the first order. In this case, it was as if President Bush were suddenly to heap dung on Tony Blair-publicly.

Still, the Mexicans reacted blandly, saying they were disappointed that Castro would make a private conversation public. Be that as it may, they said they would not break diplomatic relations with their old chum.

Last June, Castro suffered a brief fainting spell during one of his marathon speeches at a rally outside Havana. The official propaganda machine kissed it off as nothing more than a touch of heat exhaustion.

Could it be that the world’s longest-reigning dictator just might not run that much longer?

________________
James Whelan, a former foreign correspondent in Latin America, served as editor of the Sacramento Union and founding editor, publisher and CEO of the Washington Times.

Thanks for the ping and the post!

Fidel Castro faces rocky relations with Mexico, break in diplomatic ties with Uruguay ***"President Fox has a lot of things to do. He cannot spend four hours everyday talking, as Castro does," Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda told the radio news program Monitor in an acid reference to the Cuban leader's volubility. "Fortunately for Mexico, we have elections here. We have alternating power here and Mexicans here, I believe, do not want a president who remains in power for 43 years. We have already had that - he was named Porfirio Diaz - and because of that we kicked him out."

Interior Secretary Santiago Creel referred to Castro as a "dictator" whose "word is no good.... who has no dignity" in an interview with TV Azteca.***

Castro Bugs Fox Because Fox Is Bugging Castro***Now that the air has been cleared, the Fox government is free to join more aggressively in the growing Latin outcry against the Cuban regime's human rights violations. It may even take the lead. With Mr. Fox's foreign minister Jorge Castañeda, a reformed Marxist, taking a special interest in human rights in Cuba, Castro's world image could take a real beating.***

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