Bad blood between Cuba and Spain boiled over again Thursday as Havana's foreign minister called his Madrid counterpart ``a liar and blackmailer'' for threatening to warn Spanish tourists to stay away from Cuba.
Behind the spat was nothing more than a highway accident in Cuba. A Spanish tourist, Jesus Martin, 30, collided with a motorcyclist. A judge found Martin free of blame in the March 1 crash, but police have not allowed him to leave the island.
But Martin's case turned ugly amid the lingering tensions between Havana and the year-old conservative government of President Jose Maria Aznar, whose ambassador-designate to Cuba was vetoed by Havana last November even before he set foot on the island.
Spanish Foreign Minister Abel Matutes, usually in favor of good relations with Cuba, set off the row when he said Wednesday that unless Martin was allowed to leave Cuba soon he might be forced to warn other Spaniards that Cuba is an unsafe vacation spot.
Matutes' threat has teeth because Spaniards make up the third-largest group of tourists visiting Cuba, behind Italians and Canadians, and tourism and sugar are the single biggest hard currency earners for the Cuban government.
Matutes immediately came under attack by Spain's opposition Workers Socialist Party, which said the minister must have been ``in a night stupor'' when he spoke and noted that he has rival tourism investments in the Dominican Republic.
A spokesman for a Spanish hotel chain with several operations in Cuba complained that Matutes' statements were ``not the best way to defend the interests of the companies'' investing in Cuba.
But an angry Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina fired off the most undiplomatic retort of all on Thursday, telling a news conference that Matutes was ``a liar and a blackmailer and a meddler'' in Cuban affairs.
Spain's consul in Havana, Eduardo Cerro, told reporters Martin's problems appeared to be the result of a lack of coordination between the Cuban judiciary and police, and suggested they will be settled soon.
Not soon enough for Martin, who has claimed that the motorcyclist he crashed with demanded $2,500, then $2,000 and finally $1,500 to forget the accident. He did not pay, Martin told reporters in Spain via telephone, and is now staying with a Cuban family because he has no money for hotels or food.
``This was the worst vacation of my life,'' he was quoted as saying.
This report was supplemented by Herald wire services.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald