Mex Embassy Provocation: Boomerang Effect Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - Karen Lee Wald The Boomerang Effect: Background and analysis of newest Mexican Embassy Incident Those of us who have been around for awhile are getting more than just a little sense of deja-vu. Change the name of the country whose embassy has been occupied to "Peru", and we are back in the late 70s and early 80s. But Mexican President Vicente Fox and his foreign minister would be wise to learn from history if they don't want to see it repeated.... Let's go back to the 1970s. Both Peru and Venezuela were ruled by regimes eager to please Washington, so they were more than compliant in carrying out the politics of its immigration policy. The game then, as now, was to make it extremely difficult for the average Cuban to emigrate legally to the United States, but more than easy -- downright enticing -- to go illegally. Go to the Swiss Embassy, or after 1978 to the US Interests Section, and apply for a visa, and the months dragged into years before you got a response. In the meantime, life in Cuba became increasinly uncomfortable. If you had a responsible job (there was full employment back then) or were getting a free university education, or had any other kind of special privileges the revolution had to offer (other than free health care)and you were likely to lose it while you were waiting to leave. After all, the Cubans figured, why should they give anything more than the basic necessities to someone who had already chosen to leave? In addition, with the Bay of Pigs and other smaller armed invasions and terrorist activities still fresh in everyone's mind, relations with your former friends and even family were likely to deteriorate during the waiting period. People didn't want to be associated with a "traitor" --even if their only treason were to be abandoning those who were still giving their sweat and blood to make this revolution a success in pursuit of an easier life. Going out illegally, however, was a cinch -- instant visa if you did it inside Cuba, instant Green Card if you did it once you got to the US. Hijack a plane or boat, make an illegal stopover enroute to somewhere else, overstay an approved visit and "disappear" into the streets and neighborhoods of Miami's Little Havana -- all of these were rewarded generously by a US government eager to score political points against Cuba (although not eager enough to have large numbers of Cubans migrating to its shores to just do the obvious: let any Cuban who wanted to move to Miami have a visa just by asking for it legally in Havana). Where Peru and Venezuela came in was that on several occasions when individuals or small groups broke into their embassies by force or refused to leave, demanding "political asylum", they GAVE IT TO THEM, despite the fact that in no case were these people who would qualify for asylum under international law. That is, the asylum seekers were not people who could show they were in danger of or subjected to persecution for political, religious, ethnic or other reasons. They weren't political prisoners, didn't have warrants out for their arrest. They simply wanted the better life of "the land of Milk and Honey where the Streets are Paved with Gold".... But in each case, over the official protests of the Cuban government (which in addition to pointing this out, guaranteed there would be no reprisals against the asylum-seekers if they were simply returned to their homes and told to apply through normal channels), the Venezuelan and Peruvian governments set the bad precedent of granting asylum where none was justified, thus giving a green light to any other Cubans who wanted to take the easy route. In one instance, the Peruvian ambassador actually took the Cuban government's arguments seriously, and told a group of gate-crashers to fill out the appropriate forms and go home to await his government's response. Cuba kept its word -- nothing happened to the returnees. But the ambassador was immediately recalled to Peru, and replaced with another one who invited the men back into the embassy. The green light was on. Men and women whom the Cuban government repeatedly branded as anti-social and lumpen ne'er do wells became increasingly brazen in forcing their way into the embassies. Cubans were outraged when one such group held young children in front of them as shields to make sure that the guards at the embassy wouldn't shoot them. Before this anger had abated (in a country that values its children more than any form of wealth), another such group crashed their way in -- like the one Wednesday night -- on a hijacked bus, shooting the young guard stationed in the post outside the enemy. The guard was a 19 year old boy from a large campesino family in rural Guantanamo Province. Cubans were livid. So was Fidel. He took to the airwaves and announced that this "scum" (escoria)wasn't worth the life of one single Cuban citizen, and that if Peru wanted them, it could have them. Cuba would withdraw all of the guards which it routinely stationed outside embassies for their protection. Anyone who wanted to go to Peru was welcome to. An important sidebar here: while this was going on, about 150 men and women had been demonstrating outside the (relatively new) US Interests Section protesting delays in issuing them visas. The establishment of low-level diplomatic offices called "interests sections" to represent the US and Cuba in each others' countries was the result of discussions in 1978 initiated by a group of mostly-neutral Cuban-Americans who wanted to see normalization of relations. The agreement that came out included permission for Cubans from both sides of the Florida Straits to visit each other. Then-President Carter would allow US citizens to visit Cuba just because they wanted to. President Fidel Castro would release 150 "political prisoners" (those convicted of counterrevolutionary activities)from prison, and they and their families would be given permission to emigrate to the United States. The problem in 1980 was that after granting visas to a token number of these ex-prisoners, the US began dragging its heels. Many assumed it was more useful to Washington to have these people acting as de-stabilizing elements inside Cuba than to have them in Miami. The demonstrations going on outside the US Interests Section in April 1980 were to demand the promised visas. When these people heard Fidel's announcement, they rushed over to the Peruvian embassy. Over the next few days (it was a weekend)thousands more followed suit. Let's not kid ourselves: Peru is a poor country. None of these would-be travelers wanted to end up in Peru. They thought it would be a route to Miami or New Jersey. The Peruvian government, which had obligingly played the game for Washington until now, was stunned. For one thing, the behavior of the majority of those who rushed into the embassy confirmed the Cuban government's description of them beyond their wildest nightmares. The embassy was literally trashed. Although the Cuban government authorized nearby hotels to send in food, and milk for the children, the kind of people looking for the easy way out quickly formed gangs, stole from the weaker asylum-seekers, beat up those who changed their minds and wanted out, raped some of the women and men, and reputedly killed and ate the ambassador's dog. But Peru had an even bigger problem with this sudden influx. After the two governments agreed that those who wanted to leave could go to the embassy, leave their names and data and return home to await their visas, the numbers swelled to tens of thousands. There was no way the Peruvian government, in the midst of its own economic crisis, could handle 100,000 émigrés who were going to need food, housing, jobs, schools and all the other basic human services (and who, coming from a country which did provide all these essentials as basic human rights, assumed they had it coming to them). The Peruvians called on other countries to please take some of them. There were very few takers. Even the US was reluctant, but Carter was in a bind. After all, the US had promoted this. The US kept saying that it was the land of the free, and it sympathized with all the poor Cubans who wanted to get out from under Fidel Castro's despotism. Carter was backed into a corner, and finally agreed to take all those who could be brought to the US. Thus the Mariel "boatlift". And the beginning of the end of Carter's presidency. American workers, facing increasing unemployment, runaway shops, and other difficulties, turned against a president who suddenly let in 100,000 Spanish-speaking immigrants whom they perceived as threats to their jobs and their way of life. The media did nothing to alter this perception. President Vicente Fox would do well to re-read this not-so-ancient history. Mexican workers may not be any more eager for an influx of Cubans than their northern counterparts were, for a greater variety of reasons. And Mexico has historically had good trade and political relations with Cuba, something it doesn't want to lose at a time when the world economy is still in serious trouble. One of the most popular posters visitors to the Tricontinental Magazine in Havana take away with them shows Uncle Sam holding a pistol whose nozzle is bent backwards to fire at him. Fox's Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda, a formerly liberal academic who later denounced all popular struggles in Latin America as useless and urged Latin Americans to just make the best of neoliberal globalization, either intentionally or unwittingly set off this week's repetition of the Peruvian Embassy Incident by announcing that all Cubans are welcome at the Mexican Embassy and in Cuba. It would be more than fitting if this blunder cost him his job. Karen Lee Wald San Jose, CA 95121 ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-03.01.02-14:51:22-7536