Castro s set-up: Media fall for dictator s ploy against Vicente Fox

Union Leader ^ | 4/24/02

[kattracks]

FIDEL CASTRO is trying to hurt the administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox in an attempt to give the pro-Castro PRI party ammunition in next year’s elections. Fox has chilled Mexican relations with Cuba and warmed them with the United States, which doesn’t sit well with the crusty old dictator from Havana.

To help his PRI buddies, Castro personally betrayed Fox. On March 19, Castro and Fox discussed Castro’s participation at the March 18-22 United Nations conference on development in Monterrey, Mexico. Fox tried to persuade Castro not to unduly antagonize the United States. Castro agreed to keep his presentation short and diplomatic and to leave early.

Unbeknownst to Fox, Castro had recorded the conversation. At the conference, Castro gave a six-minute tirade against capitalism then stormed out, deliberately making a scene. On Friday, Mexico, once Cuba’s staunchest Latin American ally, voted along with almost all other Latin American members of the United Nations Human Rights Commission to criticize Cuba’s human rights record and ask Cuba to open up to U.N. investigators.

In Castro’s own words, that was the “last straw.” On Monday he played the taped conversation for reporters in a move designed to damage Fox’s reputation. Castro’s playing of the tape could hurt Fox at home because the pro-Castro PRI party can construe it (as they already have) to portray Fox as being a pawn of the United States.

Castro set up Fox in an attempt to give the famously corrupt PRI some momentum against him. The PRI barely controls the Mexican equivalent of the House of Representatives, and any damage to Fox’s PAN party could help solidify PRI’s control in next year’s elections.

This may sound arcane and inconsequential, but it isn’t. If the PRI can consolidate its legislative power, and leverage that power to retake the presidency in 2006, it would be economically disastrous for Mexico. It could send waves of refugees into the United States and boatloads of cash to left-wing dictatorships throughout Latin America. And years of U.S. taxpayer dollars and diplomacy spent to bring Latin America into the 21st century will have been squandered.

[Bogey78O]

Shouldn't this reflect badly on Castro? Oh wait, the media is socialist scum.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

This may sound arcane and inconsequential, but it isn’t. If the PRI can consolidate its legislative power, and leverage that power to retake the presidency in 2006, it would be economically disastrous for Mexico.

Yes. It will stop Mexico's move toward democratic government and economic growth. With Hugo Chavez controlling oil in Venezuela and FARC rebels in Colombia training terrorists from arround the world, we need to support democracy and those leaders who want to improve the lives of their people and condemn those who want to enslave their people.