Cuba's broken promises elicit rebukes at summit
Cuba is again a hot topic
The summit also erupted into some verbal fireworks over whether Cuba should be held to its promise of democratic reforms.
In a dig at the press, President Rafael Caldera had proposed that citizens have a right to ``truthful information.''
But some 20 foreign ministers altered the language of a final declaration to be signed Sunday to address concerns over possible restrictions on the news media.
``Now, the final document says `free and truthful information,' '' said Federico Mayor Zaragoza, the Spanish head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), based in Paris. ``I think it is an elegant solution.''
He said the document allows leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal to ask for veracity in news reports ``without any type of censorship.''
On the first day of the three-day summit, support for press freedom came from some surprising sources. Snagged by reporters as he headed to the beach of this tropical resort island, President Alberto Fujimori of Peru declared that he believes in unfettered media.
``The position of Peru -- and my personal one -- is to work for the principle of press freedom,'' he said. ``I have the Lima newspapers here. You can see in any of them that that is the way I work.''
Last summer, Fujimori's authoritarian administration yanked Peruvian citizenship from the owner of a Lima television station that was critical of his government, forcing its sale to friendlier minority shareholders.
Even Roberto Robaina, the foreign minister of Cuba, where information is tightly controlled by the Marxist government, stepped into the fray.
``Who evaluates or does not evaluate truthfulness?'' Robaina said. ``What information is missing? Cuba is taking part in this debate.''
At least five national television channels interrupted programming to report Castro's arrival at 3 p.m., a sign of his aptitude for seizing the spotlight at the annual summit. Stepping out of a Cubana airliner in his khaki fatigues, Castro was driven off in an armored car.
Forty-five minutes later, a handful of pro- and anti-Castro demonstrators scuffled at a university campus about 10 miles from the airport, where it had been rumored the Cuban president would make an appearance. Castro never showed up and the shouting match ended when the Castro supporters drove the protesters from the campus.
Several foreign ministers voiced disgust that Cuba has not moved toward free elections and political pluralism as it promised by signing a declaration at last year's summit in Viña del Mar, Chile.
``They are signing documents that they don't carry out,'' said Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Emilio Alvarez Montalvan. ``They'll sign this one, too. The problem is that these Ibero-American summits don't have any follow-through. That's the trouble. They are turning into debating contests.''
Salvadoran Foreign Minister Ramon Ernesto Gonzalez also chided Cuba.
``We can't be signing declarations that we don't have any intention of complying with,'' he said.
Robaina scoffed at suggestions that Castro put his pen to last year's summit declaration in bad faith.
``Some say there's a dictatorship in Cuba,'' he said. ``Who has the definition of absolute democracy? What is the model of democracy that we are to follow?''
In other action, Central American foreign ministers celebrated a clause in the final document asking foreign powers to help clear the 100,000 or so land mines that litter the border areas of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador, leg-destroying reminders of the civil wars of the 1980s.
``We are looking for international support for total de-mining of the region by the year 2000,'' Honduran Foreign Minister Delmer Urbizo Pantin said.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald