Guatemala, Cuba resume relations

Published Wednesday, January 28, 1998, in the Miami Herald

Guatemala, Cuba resume relations

GUATEMALA CITY -- (EFE) -- The government of Guatemala has restored diplomatic relations with Cuba, ending a 37-year estrangement, and will reopen its embassy in Havana later this year, officials announced Tuesday in the Guatemalan capital.

Later in the day, the Cuban Foreign Ministry confirmed that relations were being re-established.

According to Guatemala's Foreign Ministry, the move is intended to encourage ``exchanges in trade, culture, sports, tourism and everything else that may benefit both nations.''

The ministry also notes that the decision was made partly in response to Pope John Paul II's call last week for ``Cuba to open . . . to the world and for the world to open to Cuba.''

Guatemala's new policy aims ``to contribute to peace and freedom, to the respect for and the defense of human rights,'' the announcement said.

The rapprochement between the two nations began in 1995, with informal talks between Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina and Guatemala's then president, Ramiro de Leon Carpio.

In 1996, Robaina met with Alvaro Arzu, Guatemala's current chief of state, who has since maintained that diplomatic relations between his country and Cuba were suspended, never broken.

Cuba called a halt to relations in 1961, after the government of Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes allowed Guatemala to be used as a staging area for the U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of the island nation.