Castro's crackdown spurs world outrage

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

Cuban President Fidel Castro's latest crackdown on the island's dissidents has angered an array of nations and institutions whose support he had successfully courted over the past year.

Spain said Tuesday that King Juan Carlos could postpone a visit to Cuba expected during the spring and Canada, a leading proponent of engaging instead of pressuring Havana to ease controls, had Deputy Foreign Minister Donald Campbell summon the Cuban ambassador to his office to voice his dissatisfaction.

It's still unclear whether Castro's draconian new laws, mass detentions of dissidents and high-profile trial of four opposition leaders will affect the actual policies of Cuba's traditional friends.

``I still believe that it is important to continue a direct dialogue with Cuba. The fact that we have this dialogue gives up the opportunity to broach problems very openly, very frankly and very directly,'' said Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy.

Even less clear is whether the international outrage over the Cuban moves will have any significant impact on the human rights policies of a regime that has stayed in power 40 years through authoritarian means.

Almost bizarrely, some analysts in Havana argue that the recent rough handling of dissidents is in fact a sign of better times to come.

The crackdown is a preemptive strike, they claim, designed to keep dissidents in line after Castro is forced to adopt new economic reforms later this year to counter the island's current stagnation.

``They are cleaning the floor before it gets dirty, said one veteran foreign journalist in Havana. ``Fidel knows he has to open up, and he does not want it said that dissidents or foreign pressures made him do it.

But such arguments are unlikely to carry much weight among the many nations that have recently stepped up their policies of engagement with Cuba and criticized the U.S. policy of pressuring Havana to make changes.

``At every step of the way the Cubans are . . . deliberately choosing to take harsh measures, a Western diplomat in Havana said. ``This can go a long way toward laying the groundwork for a reconsideration of engagement.

Cuba had been experiencing a virtual honeymoon with many other nations since Pope John Paul II visited the island in January of last year and called for a warming in relations between Havana and the outside.

``May Cuba, with all its magnificent potential, open itself to the world and may the world open itself to Cuba, John Paul said at the start of his first visit to the last communist regime in the Western Hemisphere.

Much of the world indeed opened itself to Cuba. More than 30 heads of government and 90 cabinet-level officials visited Havana last year, and four Latin American nations opened or upgraded diplomatic ties with Cuba.

But some of those same friends sounded angry after Cuban police jailed about 60 dissidents Monday to keep them away from the trial of Cuba's four top opposition leaders, Vladimiro Roca, Marta Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne and Rene Gomez Manzano. Two weeks earlier, Cuba had outlawed virtually any act seen by authorities as supporting U.S. policies.

In the most stunning outburst, an editorial Tuesday in the French left-of-center newspaper Le Monde blasted Havana's crackdown in unusually harsh terms under the headline Havana, End of an Illusion.

One year after the Pope's visit, the newspaper said, ``Cuba has ended the illusion that it maintained for an international community impatient to see it respect human rights.

``The government of Fidel now shows itself for what it is: a trapped dictatorship, it added.

More condemnations of Cuba came from the usually pro-left human rights commissions in El Salvador and Guatemala, Mexico's chapter of the Pen Club, the worldwide grouping of Christian Democratic parties and the European Union.

A spokesman for Sir Leon Brittan, vice president of the EU's executive committee, said Tuesday there was ``extreme concern within the 15-nation alliance that now provides the bulk of Cuba's foreign aid and trade.

And Canada, one of Havana's top sources of tourists and hard-currency earnings, sent a written complaint to Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina.

``We continue to have serious concerns about Cuba . . . and find the latest measures particularly worrisome, said Christian Girouard, spokesman for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Uruguayan Senator Americo Ricaldani said he would urge the government to push for Cuba's expulsion from the Latin American Parliament and the World Interparliamentary Union.

But Spain held out what may turn out to be one of the most significant sanctions of all -- the postponement of King Juan Carlos' spring trip to the only former Spanish colony he has never visited.

Juan Carlos' visit had been expected to cap a warming in Spain-Cuba relations after a rocky start for conservative Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. But the Foreign Ministry confirmed Tuesday that the visit is up in the air because of Cuba's new controls on dissent.

``The ministry is working to ensure that the visit . . . goes ahead in an atmosphere of normalcy, not repression, said a spokesman, who also confirmed a recent Herald report that Madrid is seeking a Cuban promise of total freedom and access to the media for the monarch's visit.

``If these things are not guaranteed, the visit will not proceed, the spokesman said.

The Castro government has been lobbying for the monarch's visit for years as a symbol of Cuba's full membership in the Hispanic family of nations, and is expected to take strong steps to forestall any possible problems.

One longtime Latin American resident in Havana predicted that as a result of all the foreign protests against the crackdown on dissent, ``Castro may be willing to convict these four people, then wrap them up in gift paper and donate their freedom to the king as a present.