Castro Closes Ranks With Friendly Leaders Mugabe, Chavez

HAVANA - Alienated from European nations after a crackdown on the opposition and the execution of three ferry boat hijackers, President Fidel Castro closed ranks Monday with friendly African, Caribbean and South American heads of state at a U.N. conference.

Notably absent from the sixth U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification were high-ranking representatives of the European Union. The EU's 15 members unanimously agreed to reduce high-level governmental visits and participation in cultural events in Cuba after the roundup of 75 dissidents, who were later given heavy jail sentences, and the firing squad executions of the ferry boat hijackers last spring.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — who faces his own headaches at home, where last week he announced new plans by opponents to topple him — joined Castro and in a fiery speech criticized leaders of powerful industrialized nations for promising grand solutions yet doing nothing to solve developing nations' grave environmental and financial problems.

"What they have done is absolutely insignificant given the gravity of the problem," Chavez said, blaming globalization and failed neoliberal economic policies. "Neoliberalism has been defeated," Chavez proclaimed to audience applause. "Now we're going to bury it, starting this century."

Cuban President Fidel Castro (R) greets Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez upon his arrival at the Convention Palace in Havana, September 1, 2003. Chavez arrived on Saturday for the final sessions of the desertification conference, which runs through September 5 in Cuba. REUTERS/Rafael Perez

Chavez and Castro are strong political allies and close friends. Chavez thanked the Cuban leader for technological assistance that he said helped sharply reduce Venezuela's illiteracy rates.

Last year, Chavez survived a short-lived coup attempt by opponents who accuse him of trying to amass power. They have called for a recall referendum later this year.

Chavez contends that an "oligarchy" bent on ousting a democratically elected leader has sabotaged his efforts to fight for the poor.

The 13 heads of state and government from Africa and the Caribbean attending the U.N. conference also included the presidents of Zimbabwe, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Mali and Namibia and the prime ministers of Lesotho, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Many of the Africa presidents in attendance hail from countries whose independence struggles were aided by Cuba in the 1980s and 1990s.

"Coming to Cuba is to come to a country where there are true friends of Africa," Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said.

Cuban President Fidel Castro (R) greets President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe upon his arrival in Havana for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, September 1, 2003. Leaders from Africa and the Caribbean called on rich nations to put their money where their mouths are and provide funds to help arid regions where the livelihood of 1 billion people is threatened. Photo by Rafael Perez/Reuters

Mugabe is the target of widespread international criticism. Zimbabwe was suspended for a year from the decision-making councils of the Commonwealth of Britain and its former terrorities because of concerns about human rights and disputed presidential elections Mugabe narrowly won last year.

Castro, who replaced his military uniform with a dark blue suit and tie for Monday's session, noted that despite a more than 40-year U.S. economic blockade, Cuba has made progress in health, employment and education, while preserving the environment.

"In spite of huge obstacles, it is still possible to do a great deal to ensure that the environment is preserved and that humanity survives," said Castro. He said such achievements are "incompatible with the atrocious economic system imposed upon the world, the ruthless neoliberal globalization."

Delegates from more than 170 nations have been in Cuba for a week for the United Nations conference aimed at combating the planet's "desertification" — an alarming rate of soil degradation they said threatens the world's food and water.

Participants have pledged to work toward financing solutions to the problem. The conference ends Friday

TRADE WITH PLANTATION CUBA?***The matter of Cuba's benighted revolution continues to grip the interest of Americans-or so one might conclude from the fact that a recent panel discussion on the U.S. embargo against Cuba drew a lunchtime crowd of some 400 persons to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.

The large audience had mostly come to show support for relaxing the current laws against commerce with Cuba. The embargo, its opponents aver, has not brought positive changes to Cuban society. An American economic presence in Cuba, they say, can only be more beneficial than its absence has been.

An abundant irony is that many people who make this argument are those who still sentimentalize Castro. At the San Francisco meeting, the loudest applause went to a speaker who restated the very litanies the regime has employed for nearly fifty years to justify itself. And in the face of conventional wisdom, one must clarify that the embargo law was never meant to cause reform in Cuba. Its purpose was to turn away from a regime that-under the guise of “socialization” -had just stolen about one billion dollars in U.S. properties.

The heart of the current anti-embargo stand is a plea for “constructive engagement.” Its advocates posit that when American citizens come face to face with Cuban citizens, mutual understanding will flower and democratic tendencies will spread. Actually, some of that did happen when Castro’s regime opened the door to family visits by Cuban exiles; but business-to-business relations are much more doubtful, because independent enterprise does not exist in Cuba. American companies would be dealing not with Cuban counterparts but directly-and whether they know it or not-with Castro’s security forces; a prospect that offers no hope of amelioration to ordinary Cubans.

Unlike U.S. companies, Cuba’s enterprises are completely dominated by government officials and informants. Any sign of disloyalty can bring the gravest consequence. Workers have no right to collective bargaining; any attempt to organize among workers is met with ostracism, demotion, dismissal, or with arrest and lengthy imprisonment. Foreign businesses that employ Cuban workers do not pay those workers directly. Payments are made to the state, which keeps nearly all the money and doles out a pittance to workers who receive, on average, about fifteen dollars a month. The fact that even so small an amount is paid in dollars makes the deal attractive to Cubans, who gladly accept jobs in foreign companies.

This setup is a potential boon to offshore investors who can acquire the services of skilled workers without labor troubles, and without concerns about how workers are treated. A further irony-given the extensive support Castro’s regime has enjoyed in the West-is that such arrangements, far from fostering a general welfare, have led to the kind of hyper-exploitation that once occurred in pre-capitalist, feudal societies.

Even if our Western countries have no current experience in this regard, we do have words for a condition in which people must do as they are told, say and think as they are told, work as they are told, consume as they are told, live where they are told-with one’s only chance for a self-determined life residing in escape. One of those words is serfdom; another is slavery. ***

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