Castro Steps Up Attack on Spain Over Refugees

Cuban President Fidel Castro on Thursday escalated his verbal abuse of Spain for accepting asylum seekers in its Havana embassy, further straining already bruised relations with the last European country willing to offer him financial support.

Spain had expressed hope of cooling down the diplomatic crisis that erupted when 18 Cubans sought refuge in its embassy, although it continued to insist that the Cubans be allowed to leave.

But in an almost three-hour speech before scores of thousands in Havana’s sprawling Plaza of the Revolution, Castro added fuel to the diplomatic fire.

Accusing Spain of adopting “measures that unite with the United States’ economic blockade against Cuba,” he said the Spanish have become “compasses of the United States” and referred to comments by Spanish officials on the crisis as “totally hostile and offensive.”

Castro dismissed Spain’s symbolic suspension of a $2.5-million grant as inconsequential. “They needn’t take it away from us--we don’t want it,” he thundered to the crowd celebrating the 37th anniversary of the guerrilla raid he led in Santiago de Cuba, which began the Cuban revolution.

Spain suspended the grant and recalled its ambassador last weekend after a bruising Cuban note called Spanish Foreign Minister Francisco Fernandez Ordonez an “anguished colonial overseer” suffering from “historical amnesia, paternalism and scandalous ignorance.”

“What good is economic aid if it is used as a money exchange for political ends?” Castro asked.

The Castro speech surprised diplomatic observers who had been led to believe that the crisis over the embassy asylum seekers was almost over. Only hours before the speech, a Spanish diplomat in Havana told foreign journalists that he hoped calm would prevail so that serious discussions on the refugees could begin. “Most of them want to leave the country,” he said of the 18, some of whom he indicated are suspected of being Cuban agents infiltrated into the embassy to stir up trouble.

Castro made clear in his speech that Cuba will not relent in refusing to allow the asylum seekers to leave the country. “To tolerate something like this would be crazy,” he said. “Anyone who enters an embassy in this manner will not be authorized to leave.”

In addition to the 18 Cubans still sheltered in the Spanish Embassy, there are four under asylum in the home of the absent Italian ambassador. Three others left the Swiss Embassy early Wednesday, and 19 more gave themselves up to Cuban authorities last week after occupying the Czechoslovak Embassy and a Czechoslovak diplomat’s house.