SANTIAGO, Chile, April 15 (UPI) -- A decision by Chile to condemn Cuba in a vote to be held this week by the U.N. Human Rights Commission has proved highly divisive for the government of President Ricardo Lagos who has come under considerable international and domestic pressure to refrain from supporting the U.S.-sponsored motion.
Chile's final decision to back the resolution was officially announced Thursday by Foreign Minister Dolores Alvear, despite weeks of intense lobbying by Cuba and Brazil, which had succeeded in turning key members of Lagos' governing Socialist Party against the vote.
Chile has usually supported the annual condemnations of Cuba by the group of 53 member countries meeting in Geneva. The U.N. body is also reviewing the human rights records of Iran, China and other alleged violators of civil liberties. But the vote on Cuba is considered particularly significant because of mass arrests conducted a year ago by the Castro government, targeting independent journalists and political activists, 75 of whom remain imprisoned.
While winning the vote is considered a regional priority in the U.S. State Department -- which is increasingly concerned by moves towards a Cuban style regime in Venezuela -- Cuba and its allies consider it a test of strength against Washington's efforts to isolate the communist island.
Despite the much watered-down resolution being presented by Honduras, which appeals to the Cuban government to implement "measures to facilitate the transition towards a fruitful dialogue with all currents of thought and political groups of its society to promote the full development of democratic institutions," Fidel Castro has mounted a major effort to block it.
Brazil and Argentina announced early decisions to abstain from voting for the resolution. But Chile -- considered a closer ally of the United States -- remained a diplomatic battleground until the last minute. The Socialist Party's executive committee publicly urged Lagos to follow the lead of its neighbors, declaring that a condemnation of Cuba would only serve to "reinforce the most hawkish elements" of the Bush administration.
As late as Tuesday, Socialist Sen. Jaime Naranjo who presides over the Congressional Committee on Human Rights said that he expected Chile to abstain. He called the annual U.N. condemnation "a useless ritual which has failed to have any effect on civil liberties in Cuba."
Even a leading senator for the conservative opposition Christian Democrats, Jorge Lavandero, defended Cuba as a country "harassed" by the United States during a heated congressional debate on the issue. He joined Socialists calling President Bush "the world's worst violator of human rights," in reference to the ongoing occupation of Iraq which Chile opposes.
The campaign for an abstention had been gathering strength since a visit to Santiago in late March by a high-level delegation of the Cuban Communist Party led by Jorge Arbesu and Nestor Leon Subral. They are the heads of the Cuban CP's Americas department which coordinates ties with friendly political movements throughout the western hemisphere.
While the Chilean Socialist Party has cast itself in a European-style, social-democratic mold supportive of domestic free market policies, some of its most veteran militants have maintained close ties with Cuba since the government of Socialist President Salvador Allende in the early 1970s. Chilean Socialist leaders are scheduled to visit Havana later this month.
The Cuban Communist delegates had been preceded in Santiago by Cuban Foreign Minister Perez Roque who publicly called on Chile to "rectify" its position during a tour of several Latin capitals in which he obtained the personal support of Brazilian President Inacio Lula da Silva and Argetina's President Nestor Kirchner.
The CP delegation remained in Santiago for almost two weeks, networking with the Socialists and other political parties. The daily La Tercera reports that they held lengthy private meetings with leading Cabinet officials, including Interior Minister Jorge Miguel Insulza and Defense Minister Michele Bachelet.
In a front-page interview with the government-run newspaper La Nacion, Leon warned that Chile risked "regional isolation" unless it joined Brazil and Argentina by abstaining in the U.N. vote. Foreign Ministry sources told United Press International Cuban representatives even suggested exercising their influence with the powerful socialist movement MAS in neighboring Bolivia which is mobilizing an anti-Chilean campaign over national demands for a sea outlet.
According to news reports, Bachelet, who is being groomed as the Socialist presidential candidate for next year's elections, tried to personally influence Lagos. She argued that Chile could afford to upset Washington over Cuba, as it had been among the first Latin countries to heed U.S. requests for peacekeeping troops for Haiti, Socialist Party members said.
A Brazilian presidential envoy, Marco Aurelio Garcia, met with Lagos on Monday as pressures mounted on Chile to switch its vote. According to Chilean Foreign Ministry officials, Lula was offering a compromise by which Brazil, Argentina and Chile would abstain as a block while issuing a separate joint statement in support of civil liberties.
But Washington was also turning up the heat. U.S. ambassador in Santiago, William Brownfield openly said that any country that considers the problems of Cuba should support the U.S. position.
Last minute telephone exchanges were also held between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Alvear, according to U.S. government sources in Santiago who expressed surprise at Cuba's ability to mount such an effective lobby.
Chile's decision is expected to influence the position of the two remaining Latin members of the human rights commission whose votes remained in the balance by mid-week, Mexico and Paraguay.
In what is interpreted as an government move to placate Socialist Party
anger over the decision to to condemn Cuba at the U.N. Human Rights
Commission, Chile´s Foreign ministry has announced that it will also call
attention to the continued detention of more than 600 alleged Islamist extremists being held without trial at the U.S. base of Guantanamo.
"Our conscience is also troubled by what is happening in Guantanamo where
630 people are being detained without clear judicial status," Foreign
Minister Soledad Alvear said.
One socialist senator, Jaime Gazmuri, had earlier characterized Lagos' support for the U.S.-sponsored motion against Cuba as "unbalanced and
arbitrary."
The Cuban ambassador, Alfonso Fraga, who tried to meet with Lagos Wednesday said that Chile´s decision "complicates" relations with Havana and his government "resents" not being informed before it was announced publicly.
