The two Latin American governments took these measures the day after a May Day speech by Cuban president Fidel Castro. In his remarks, Castro had criticized these governments, among others, for voting in favor of a U.S.-orchestrated resolution narrowly adopted by the United Nations human rights commission two weeks earlier. The resolution condemned Havana for alleged human rights violations.

At the May Day celebration in Havana’s Revolution Square, attended by more than 1 million people, Castro said the governments that voted for the UN resolution were subservient to Washington. “There were seven from Latin America, four of whom suffer from great economic and social poverty, are highly dependent, and have governments obliged to be totally abject,” Castro said. He added that the fifth government, that of Peru, “provides an example of the degree of servility and dependence into which imperialism… [has] led many countries in Latin America.”

“The worst and most humiliating part for Mexico was that the news about its vote in Geneva… were announced in Washington,” Castro said in his speech.

The resolution Castro was referring to was submitted to the UN human rights commission by the government of Honduras under pressure from Washington. On April 15 the commission adopted it in a 22-21 vote, with 10 abstentions. This is an annual ritual by the U.S. rulers, which is part of Washington’s propaganda war against the Cuban Revolution. This year, the U.S. government and its allies in Europe and elsewhere used as their main rationalization to get backing for the “human rights” resolution the arrests and convictions a year ago by Cuban authorities of 75 opponents of the Cuban Revolution on charges of collaborating with a hostile state power—Washington—in its campaign to subvert Cuban sovereignty and overthrow the revolutionary government. The resolution demanded that Havana allow UN “human rights” inspectors into the country, which Cuba refused to do.

The same day the UN human rights commission passed this resolution, Cuba put forward another resolution at the UN General Assembly condemning human rights violations by Washington for its treatment of some 600 prisoners it has been holding indefinitely at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo, Cuba. Castro recently described the prison as “a concentration camp where not a single right is recognized.” The Cuban government subsequently suspended its effort to put this resolution to a vote, citing pressures by Washington on many governments to stop it from even getting on the floor of the United Nations. “We are going to continue pursuing this issue,” said Cuba’s foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque at the time. “We will bring back the project at the appropriate time.”  
 
‘Cannon fodder for imperialism’
In his May Day speech, Castro said the Spanish government under the previous conservative administration of José Maria Aznar, had recruited “young Dominicans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Nicaraguans to be sent as canon fodder to Iraq.” This statement spurred the Nicaraguan government, along with that of Honduras, to publicly criticize Cuba on May 4. The next day, Managua also filed a formal complaint with the Cuban government about this remark.

In response to these punitive actions against Cuba by several capitalist governments in Latin America, demonstrations have taken place in both Mexico and Peru. According to the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, “A seven-block long column of union, social and political organizations marched in Lima, Peru, showing solidarity with Cuba, concluding with a protest in front of the Peruvian Foreign Ministry.” More than 2,000 people protested the expulsion of the Cuban ambassador from Mexico, marching from Mexico City’s Angel of Independence monument to the presidential residence Los Pinos.

The Mexican government blamed Cuba for interfering in its internal affairs for remarks made by Cuba’s Foreign Ministry related to a Mexican businessman who fled to Cuba after allegedly holding meetings in Mexico involving two Cuban diplomats without going through diplomatic channels. The Cuban diplomats denied the charges.

The businessman, Carols Ahumada, fled to Cuba in February after a videotape was broadcast on Mexican television showing him giving money to officials of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). The PRD is a bourgeois party that’s part of the opposition to the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN), led by Mexico’s president Vicente Fox.

On March 10, Mexican officials issued a warrant for Ahumada’s arrest on charges of fraud and money laundering for an unrelated incident. On Mexico City’s request, Havana extradited the businessman to Mexico on April 28. Cuba’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Cuba “in no way wishes to meddle in the internal affairs of Mexico. We have been unduly mixed up in this scandal.”

On May 5, Pérez Roque said that “Cuba and Mexico are living their worst moment in more than 100 years of diplomacy.” The Mexican government is the only Latin American government that has never broken diplomatic ties with Cuba.  
 
Washington’s threats
Two days earlier, a U.S. government commission headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell submitted a report to the president on recommendations for future policy on Cuba. According to the Miami Herald, it includes a plan to use EC-130 Commando Solo aircraft for “psychological operations broadcast” to break through Cuba’s jamming of “Radio Martí” and “TV Martí,” which Washington has been using for some time to broadcast propaganda against the revolutionary government. The aircraft has been used in Bosnia, Kosova, Haiti, and Panama for similar operations.

According to the New York Times, the Powell recommendations call for “scaling back family visits from once a year to once every three years, and cutting back on educational travel.” Cuban Americans are permitted so far to visit relatives on the island once annually.

The Miami Herald also said that the report recommends cutting in half the $164 a day U.S. visitors can legally spend in Cuba, eliminating a provision allowing U.S. travelers to bring back $100 worth of goods and restricting legal travel by Cuban-Americans to direct relatives. The reports also recommends allocating $59 million for these efforts over the next two years, $36 million of which is earmarked to finance counterrevolutionary groups inside Cuba.

Responding to news that this U.S. report was about to be issued, Castro said in his May Day speech: “Now they are once again making themselves hoarse shouting threats of upcoming measures to affect our economy and destabilize the country. They would do well to return the five prisoners of the empire to us, who with unequalled dignity are withstanding the most shameful and cruel case of human rights violations.” Castro was referring to five Cuban revolutionaries serving draconian sentences in U.S. jails on frame-up charges brought by the FBI, including conspiracy to commit espionage for the Cuban government.

“To those who persist in their efforts to destroy the revolution, I simply say, in the name of the crowd gathered here on this May 1,” Castro said, “Long live socialism! Homeland or death!”  
 
 
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