Castro's summit trip sparks heated debate on both sides in Chile

Published Saturday, November 9, 1996, in the Miami Herald

Castro's summit trip sparks heated debate on both sides in Chile

First visit since coup is a lightning rod for demonstrations

By KATHERINE ELLISON
Herald Staff Writer

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Cuban President Fidel Castro goes nowhere without causing a commotion. But the ruckus in Chile -- dating back to weeks before his arrival today for the sixth Iberoamerican summit -- has hit new decibel levels.

Dueling demonstrations have been planned to welcome and denounce him. Anti-Castro Cubans have been flying in from Miami and sending funds to subsidize the protests. Chile's Senate has voted to condemn him. And other politicians plan a caceroleo, or banging of pots and pans, around the Hyatt Hotel, where he may stay.

On Friday, Chilean legislator Ivan Moreira of the right-wing Independent Democratic Union was detained by police in a plaza near the Hotel Hyatt, where the leaders will be housed, when he tried to read a statement attacking Castro. He was accompanied by about 30 people.

An official of Moreira's party said the legislator was released after 30 minutes at a police station but protested that his detention was a violation of legislative immunity as well as the right to free speech.

It's hardly surprising that Castro's first trip to Chile in 25 years should stir up emotions. Six years after the end of the long reign of right-wing Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Chilean politics remain bitterly polarized, with Castro a natural lightning rod.

Chile's leftists love Castro for standing up to the United States, which backed Pinochet's brutal coup in 1973. Rightists hate him for supporting Salvador Allende, the Marxist president deposed by Pinochet. Both sides have seized the chance to relive history and vie for attention.

It's all very upsetting to government officials who call the summit of 22 Latin and European heads of state plus the king of Spain -- and an estimated 1,500 reporters -- the most important international conference Chile has ever hosted.

Striving to limit the influence of the Castro controversy, organizers have reportedly met with Pinochet, Castro's longtime nemesis and head of Chile's army. The general, pointedly, will be far away from Santiago during the summit, supervising military exercises in the north.

Invites hyperbole

Still, no one has managed to limit the polemics over how Castro should be received and how much influence he may wield over the summit's final statement, expected to include a protest against the Helms-Burton law extending the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. Nor have they contained the vivid hyperbole that Castro always attracts.

``It's as if a group of Jewish survivors of the World War II concentration camps got together to remember the dead, and someone said, `Why not invite Hitler?' '' complained Armando Valladares, who spent 22 years as a political prisoner in Cuba and was later named by President Reagan as a special ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Outside his hotel lingered two members of Chile's carabineros police force.Valladares said they were part of his government-arranged bodyguard, since ``Castro has tried to kill me many times.''

Minister justifies visit

It has clearly been a challenge for officials to turn reporters away from that kind of drama and toward the summit substance, with its not exactly eye-catching theme of ``Governability and Democratic Participation.'' And some have tired of trying.

Ambushed Wednesday by reporters at the inauguration of a postage stamp in honor of the summit, Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Insulza gritted his teeth, muttering in English, ``One more time . . .'' when queried as to what Cuba might bring to a summit on governability and democracy.

``You'll have to ask the Cubans that,'' he replied. ``Fidel Castro's visit is justified in that he's a chief of state and member of the Iberoamerican summit process from its beginning.''

Castro's leftist supporters go much further.

``Castro represents Latin American dignity in confronting U.S. imperialism,'' said Lautaro Carmona, a member of the Communist Party's political commission.

Some offended

Anti-Castro Chileans retort that Castro's presence is a national offense, charging him with conspiring to kill Pinochet in 1986 by sending arms to his opponents.

``He's a tyrant who has intervened in our country and must be brought to justice,'' said Rodrigo Eitel, a 20-year-old law student who is organizing the anti-Castro protests.

Eitel acknowledged his hopes that Castro's visit will boost the profile of his Action for Chile Movement, which he said will campaign for Pinochet for president in 1998.

``He's above the dirty day-to-day politics,'' Eitel said of the general. ``He's like a king.''

In his parents' living room, where a signed portrait of Pinochet sat atop a piano, Eitel leafed through a thick folder of congratulatory faxes from U.S.-based anti-Castro groups, at one point leaping up to take a phone call, after which he returned, crowing: ``The first Cuban has arrived!''

Eitel brought out a stack of press clippings, pointing out several pictures of himself.

``I'm one of the 20 most powerful people in the country, but you wouldn't know it from talking to me, because I'm so humble,'' he confided.

Leftists reap benefits

Chile's pro-Castro leftists have also reaped benefits from the summit's high profile. Last week, Pinochet finally gave in to pressure from civilians and dropped slander charges against Communist Party chief Gladys Marin, who has called him a ``psychopath,'' ``coward'' and ``traitor,'' and blamed him for ``state terrorism'' at a speech in September on the anniversary of his coup.

Marin, whose husband was one of more than 1,000 Chileans ``disappeared'' by security forces during Pinochet's rule, was arrested Oct. 29, sparking international protests and threatening to overshadow the summit.

Since then, Marin has helped organize Castro's welcome reception.

Castro's prior visit

However sharp the conflict has grown over Castro's presence here, it is bound to wane much sooner than it did the last time he came, during Allende's government, when he stayed 25 days, dressed up in sombrero and poncho, drank the local pisco sours and played basketball.

Still, judging by the deep roots of politics in Chile, the polemics won't end with Castro's departure.

``Castro is a lying communist!'' piped up 9-year-old Augusto Matte, a uniformed third-grader touring an exhibit of photos of presidents expected at the summit, at a shopping mall in the wealthy Las Condes neighborhood. ``That's what my daddy says, and that's what I say, too.''

Herald special correspondent Elizabeth Love contributed to this report.