| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2009 
Castro’s Flu Claims Hurt Ties with Cuba
 EFE
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| | Patricia Espinosa | |
Mexico City – Fidel Castro’s criticism about Mexico’s handling of the swine flu epidemic “are straining the bilateral relationship,” the Mexican foreign secretary told her Cuban counterpart on the eve of a Europe-Latin America meeting in Prague.
The foreign ministry said that Patricia Espinosa conveyed that sentiment to Bruno Rodriguez a few hours after Fidel Castro said the Mexican government delayed sounding the alert about the AH1N1 virus to ensure a planned visit to Mexico by U.S. President Barack Obama would not be canceled.
Espinosa “regretted and categorically rejected the statements disseminated in Cuba on this matter which, far from fostering understanding, are straining the bilateral relationship,” Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a communique.
The foreign minister emphasized that “the handling of the information was and is objective and transparent, which has deserved the broad recognition of the international community.”
The differences began after Cuba suspended, as did other countries, flights to and from Mexico out of fear that the epidemic could spread, measures that were criticized by Mexican President Felipe Calderon as unjustified and discriminatory.
The friction increased when Calderon hinted that he might suspend an official visit to Cuba tentatively set for next month, thus provoking Castro’s reaction.
“The Mexican authorities did not inform the world (of) the presence of it (the flu epidemic) awaiting Obama’s visit. Now they are threatening us with suspending that of (Mexican) President (Felipe) Calderon” to Cuba, the 82-year-old Castro said.
Espinosa, in her meeting with Rodriguez, reiterated the opinion of the Mexican government that the suspension of flights between her country and Cuba “is not consistent with the recommendations of the World Health Organization or with the spirit of cooperation necessary to overcome this situation.”
The Mexican foreign ministry said in the communique that Rodriguez explained that the decision to suspend the flights was made as “a mechanism to defend the public against the threats of various sorts, with the limited resources his country has.”
Calderon was invited to Cuba by President Raul Castro, who last year succeeded older brother Fidel, in the context of what had been a growing rapprochement between the two governments.
In 2004, then-President Vicente Fox withdrew Mexico’s ambassador to Cuba and expelled Cuba’s top diplomat after accusing the communist-ruled island of meddling in the country’s internal affairs.
Tensions between the two countries had begun two years earlier, when Fox asked Fidel Castro to cut short his visit to a U.N. gathering in Monterrey, Mexico, to avoid crossing paths with then-U.S. President George W. Bush. |
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