Posted on 03/23/2002 2:00:17 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Cuba accused President Bush on Friday of threatening to boycott this week's U.N. aid summit in Mexico unless Cuban President Fidel Castro was made to leave, but Bush insisted he didn't pressure anybody.
Castro abandoned the summit meeting in Mexico's northern city of Monterrey on Thursday, shortly before Bush arrived, and a senior Cuban official said the communist leader was asked by Mexican officials to make himself scarce.
"We received very senior people from the Mexican government before the conference who indicated they had been subjected to U.S. government pressure, specifically threats from President Bush that he would not come to Monterrey if Fidel Castro came," said Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's national assembly.
Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox, the summit host, both denied the allegations but the dispute threatened to end a recent easing in U.S.-Cuban tensions and hit Cuba's long-standing friendship with Mexico.
Asked at a joint news conference with Fox whether he would have felt uncomfortable meeting Castro, Bush responded that what made him uncomfortable about the Cuban leader was "the way he treats his people."
"I know of no pressure placed on anybody. Fidel Castro can do what he wants to do," he said.
Asked "who's lying here?" by a second reporter, a visibly annoyed Bush snapped: "I thought I answered that question."
Fox said of Castro: "He participated in the conference and returned to Cuba. Nothing more."
Alarcon, who took over as head of Cuba's summit delegation when Castro walked out on Thursday, said the veteran leader refused to stay away from the conference altogether but agreed to cut short his trip, leaving after his speech and before Bush arrived.
CUBA-MEXICO RELATIONSHIP STRAINED
Mexican officials "with great authority transmitted the message and specifically asked us, given they could not prevent Fidel from coming, that he leave immediately after lunch," Alarcon said.
Mexico has been a close ally of Castro's government since he took power in 1959 but relations have been strained in recent years as Mexico has moved closer economically and politically to the United States.
The latest dispute has largely overshadowed the summit meeting and some officials here have privately suggested that may have been Castro's intention all along.
"The presence of Fidel in the summit has been a highly important event, which in diplomatic terms means he stole the show," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told Cuban state TV in a telephone interview from Monterrey.
Cuban state TV and radio have played Castro's speech over and over again, and a special two-part program on the "repercussions" of his presence in Monterrey was shown on Thursday and Friday evenings.
President Vicente Fox's government has offended Cuba by criticizing it over human rights and democracy issues.
The five-day U.N. development conference, attended by more than 50 heads of state in the final two days, ended late on Friday with rich and poor nations saying they had struck a new bargain to fight world poverty.
"We must tie greater aid to political and legal and economic reforms," Bush told the conference on Friday morning.
Castro ridiculed the rich world's efforts to fight poverty during his speech on Thursday, saying they were masters of a "genocidal" system that condemns billions to misery.
"The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history," he said.
Ironically Cuba used to be quite popular with Western entertainment companies who provided great beaches, plenty of prostitutes, and ample gambling opportunities to foreign tourists.
For nearly 30 years the LEFT used to defend Castro by noting that he had made the island much less dependent on tourism, and besides he had tossed out the Mob, and eliminated prostitution and gambling.
The LEFT has been remarkably silent as Castro has reinstituted prostitution and gambling.
As if to show how deeply indebted he is to these institutions, he put everything on the line to bring back the young son of one of his female acquisition specialists!
You know, Baptista would not have done that.
I wonder if the reporter would have asked the same question of Castro.
I think we all know he wouldn't.
There's room for more terrorists. How very convenient and appropriate they're being held there.
The corrupt PRI still holds majorities in the Mexican congress. The majority of Mexican mayors are also PRI. President Fox spoke with the dissidents when he went to Cuba, which was viewed as very risky politically. Vicente Fox's election ousted the PRI from the presidential palace after 70 years of corrupt rule. They are not happy with Fox. I think Castro's temper tantrum was designed by Castro to ruffle some feathers and showcase himself. He only managed to make himself look like the weak fool he is. The socialists in the U.S. congress, the "progressive" U.N. and all those third world tin horn dictators, that align with him, have heralded his control over the Cuban people as a victory against the U.S. and allowed him to preside as Cuba's prison warden for 40 over years.
Yes! LOL
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