July 5, 1999

The Dallas Morning News, 07/03/99

Knight Ridder Newspapers

World chiefs ignored his pleas earlier at summit

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - After being snubbed at a European-Latin American summit, Fidel Castro soothed his considerable pride by reveling in a two-day-long popular embrace this week.

A samba singer serenaded him. Thousands of students cheered him. Business executives praised him; politicians draped him with medals.

"To the envy of all of you, I'm going to give him a kiss and a hug!" Rio de Janeiro Vice Gov. Benedita da Silva, of the leftist Workers Party, cried at a standing-room-only homage in a state university auditorium, where the Cuban leader spoke for 3 1/2 hours Wednesday night.

That was just after popular singer Bete Carvalho hailed Mr. Castro as the "Man of the Century," to the frantic applause of more than 1,100 special guests seated in the auditorium and 4,000 watching a giant screen outside.

Mr. Castro, who left Brazil on Thursday night, was generally rebuffed by the 48 government chiefs convening here Monday and Tuesday. They ignored his pleas to include a specific condemnation of the Helms-Burton law, tightening the U.S. embargo against Cuba, in their final declaration.

Some, including Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, criticized Mr. Castro's recent human rights crackdown. And in a singular embarrassment, Mr. Castro was the only national leader not appearing in the meeting's official photo. The others hurried to pose while he was using the bathroom.

Yet after the rest of the dignitaries left Brazil, the Cuban leader, who will turn 73 in August, embarked on a schedule that would have worn out many men half his age.

And though hoarse and often rambling in his marathon speeches - always preceded by promises to be brief - he proved he's still a master of one-liners that tapped his audiences' resentment of U.S. dominance of world politics and finance.

"I am against the kind of globalization that allows one U.S. gentleman to have $80 billion, while another, in this country, sleeps under a bridge," he said.

In his speech at the State University of Rio, Mr. Castro warned of a coming crisis that he said would replace capitalism "with a more humanitarian world order."

The "euphoria" of U.S. prosperity wouldn't outlast "the bubbles on the champagne with which the privileged few celebrate the new century, while we here will celebrate with a beverage - which I hope will not be Coca-Cola," he said.

At a ceremony before his speech, Mr. Castro was declared an honorary citizen of Rio de Janeiro, and given a medal by the state legislature.

Earlier in the day, he had stopped to receive other honors in the nearby city of Niteroi, where several Cuban doctors attend to poor communities, and to woo a group of prominent business executives in Rio, whom he invited to Havana in November.

Mr. Castro is eager to increase investments and trade from Brazil, the world's eighth-largest economy, whose mostly dark-skinned and poor population resembles and is unusually sympathetic to Cuba.

The comments of business executives after the meeting probably gave Mr. Castro hope.

Flavio Andrade, president of the large tobacco firm Souza Cruz, extolled investment conditions in Cuba, which he said provided top-notch employees, and said he wanted to double his investments there.

Benjamin Steinbruch, head of the giant mining firm Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, sat next to Mr. Castro during the meeting and later praised Mr. Castro's "fantastic memory" and energy.

On Thursday, Mr. Castro and his 250-member delegation flew to Belo Horizonte, in Minas Gerais state, where Gov. Itamar Franco, a former president, welcomed him with a bottle Brazilian rum.

Mr. Franco is a fierce political rival of Brazil's President Fernando Henrique de Cardoso. Mr. Castro also invited him to Cuba.

Later, the Cuban president spoke for almost two hours to a National Students Union meeting, where some 3,000 attendees gave him a standing ovation, although a couple dozen protesters outside shouted "Murderer!"

Waving his finger in the air, pausing often for dramatic effect, Mr. Castro, with his relentless attack on the U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia - and on U.S. wealth and power in general - "said everything that was stuck in our own throats," said Rio state's Vice Governor da Silva.

©1999 The Dallas Morning News

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