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'Cuban issue' among topics of Latin summit

conference November 9, 1997
Web posted at: 11:48 p.m. EST (0448 GMT)

MARGARITA ISLAND, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal ended an annual summit on Sunday that heard calls for stronger democratic values and found room to accommodate Cuba's own brand of "true democracy."

As expected, the Seventh Ibero-American Summit of 19 Latin American nations and their two former colonial rulers issued pledges on a range of issues. They included promises to fight against poverty, corruption and drug trafficking, work for human rights and promote free and fair elections.

Also as predicted, Cuba's one-party system and its aging leader Fidel Castro were targets of veiled criticism.

But diplomats who attended the two-day meeting on the Caribbean island tourist resort of Margarita, just off the Venezuelan coast, stressed that communist-ruled Cuba was no longer a bone of contention at such regional forums.

"It's preferable to invite Cuba than to exclude it," host Venezuelan President Rafael Caldera said.

He acknowledged however that "the Cuban issue is a constant concern for Latin Americans and it was inevitable that in the course of a free discussion it would reverberate."

Since the first Ibero-American summit in Mexico in 1991, "these summits have matured a lot and Fidel (Castro) is accepted on the basis of (political) pluralism," said Colombian ambassador to Venezuela Mario Suarez Melo.

Ibero-American gatherings are the only international forums, apart from the United Nations, attended by Cuba. The island nation was suspended from the Organization of American States in 1962.

Castro

The 71-year-old Castro, who looked weary and did not seem to enjoy the spotlight as he usually does, hailed Cuba's one-party rule that has been in place since the early 1960s.

In a brief speech on Saturday, he called it "a true democracy, a government from the people and for the people," that produced more benefits than traditional Western-style democracies.

The only sharp differences of opinion came from Argentine President Carlos Menem and Nicaragua's leader Arnoldo Aleman, known for his fierce anti-communist stance.

"Democracy and rule of law are not possible in countries where people are deprived of the rights to freely and periodically elect their governing leaders," Aleman said.

The official theme of the summit was "The Ethical Values of Democracy," a topic that sounded more likely to produce rhetorical exchanges than far-reaching decisions.

But Chilean President Eduardo Frei said the summits formed part of a long-term integration process. "They allow informal exchanges of views which are very important," he said at a joint news conference with Caldera.

Among the tangible diplomatic results was an invitation by Colombian President Ernesto Samper to Castro to be a peace broker in the region's longest-running guerrilla war.

Samper asked Cuba to join a group of four countries -- Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain and Venezuela -- offering to help end Colombia's three-decades-old struggle with Marxist and Cuban-inspired rebels.

Castro said he felt it his duty to help bring about peace wherever he could, but Colombia's largest guerrilla group -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) -- was unconvinced.

A FARC spokesman, while praising Castro as "still the beacon of freedom in Latin America," said the FARC "has never considered that a foreign power can direct the situation in Colombia."

 
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