Fidel, Usually the Star, Skips Ibero-American Summit

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

[As Sequera notes, he usually steals the show, but this year Fidel is
staying home to oversee reconstruction efforts after Hurricane
Michelle. The Summit officially began on Friday night in Lima, Peru.
This is an extremely superficial and disengenous review of the
issues, not surprisingly, concentrating more on Castro's wardrobe at
past summits than on issues he has raised. The final paragraph,
regarding last year's discussion over the ETA "terrorism" resolution,
is woefully incomplete. Fidel gave the president of El Salvador, who
acted as a CIA hireling at the meeting, a dressing-down regarding
that country's cooperation with anti-Cuban terrorist plots that few
will ever forget. --NY Transfer]

Saturday November 24 4:10 AM ET (via Yahoo)

CASTRO SKIPS IBERO-AMERICAN SUMMIT

By VIVIAN SEQUERA, Associated Press Writer 

HAVANA (AP) - Cuban President Fidel Castro, long accustomed to
stealing the spotlight at the annual Ibero-American summit, didn't
attend for the first time in the gathering's 10-year history. 

Castro skipped the meeting of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking
leaders, which opened Friday in Lima, Peru, because of ongoing
reconstruction efforts after Hurricane Michelle. The storm devastated
central Cuba on Nov. 4. 

"I express my deepest solidarity to President Castro and the Cuban
people," Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo told the opening
session of the summit Friday evening. He said Castro had sent his
regrets in a letter. 

Because of his legendary status, Castro's attendance at the summit
has never failed to draw attention and spark speculation. The
75-year-old leader is known for making lengthy speeches, arriving
amid much secrecy and symbolically changing his dress -- from his
usual olive green military uniform to a dark suit or a tropical
guayabera shirt. 

Last year, upon arrival at the meeting in Panama, Castro immediately
held a news conference to announce that Cuban exiles in the country
were plotting to assassinate him. 

The announcement was quickly followed by the arrest in Panama of
Castro's old nemesis, Luis Posada Carriles, whom the Cuban leader
blames for numerous terrorist acts against the island. 

Posada, 72, is accused by Cuba of organizing the bombing of a Cubana
de Aviacion jet that exploded off the coast of Barbados on Oct. 6,
1976. He escaped from prison in Venezuela before his case was tried
and is now being held in Panama on charges related to the alleged
assassination plot. 

Castro's arrival at the first Ibero-American summit in July 1991 in
Guadalajara, Mexico, came as the Soviet bloc was crumbling and new,
democratically elected Latin American leaders were taking power. 

At that first gathering, other heads of state called on Castro to
start making changes at home. The following year, in Spain,
speculation about Castro's future was rampant as the communist
country began feeling the economic effects of the loss of Soviet aid
and trade.

In 1993, Castro surprised fellow heads of state by joining their
calls for insurgent groups to renounce armed struggle, and then by
donning a white guayabera shirt instead of his military fatigues.

In Oporto, Portugal, in 1998, all eyes were on Castro again when news
broke that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet had been
detained in London on human rights charges. Castro said that while
the case seemed to be morally just, it was legally problematic. 

Last year, Castro caused a stir with his spirited debate over a
proposed resolution to condemn terrorism by Basque separatists in
Spain. 

Castro refused to sign the resolution, saying that it should have
been broadened to include all acts of terrorism. Castro has long
complained that other nations should take more seriously the
terrorist acts committed against his country. 

 
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