Community of Latin Nations Proposed : Diplomacy: Castro is the only naysayer at Ibero-American summit.

Spain, Portugal and their former New World colonies called Thursday for a loose community of Latin nations that would cooperate internationally on shared principles of political pluralism and free-market economics.

There was only one naysayer at the opening here of a two-day Ibero-American summit, Cuban President Fidel Castro. He ignored the context of the meeting to deliver a vitriolic attack against the United States. Riots in Los Angeles, Castro said, were symptoms of the rot in a country that has become “an empire trying to govern the planet.”

For the quickly modernizing Iberian nations and many of their Latin American offspring, the possibility of effective international cooperation is a fruit and celebration of recovered democracy.

Beginning with Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, one leader after another called democratic rule the essential ingredient for government, for development and for their prospects of international accord.

Gonzalez said Ibero-American cooperation could produce a “useful and practical instrument” to lend an international dimension and support to national and regional problem-solving efforts; Spanish officials say the idea is to give Ibero-American countries a new voice in international forums.

Today, 500 years after Columbus, about 500 million people in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula share links of history, language, culture and religion. Twenty years ago, dictators ruled in Spain, in Portugal and in many Latin American republics. Castro ruled Cuba then, but on Thursday, hunched in the olive green dress uniform of a comandante at a round table in the Spanish Senate, he was the odd dictator out.

The other presidents, Mexico to Argentina and 16 in between, had come to mull their place in a world dramatically changed by the end of the Cold War. Castro fought it anew, urging Latin America to unite against the United States.

International changes, said Gonzalez, offer the nations of Ibero-America the chance “to modernize political, economic and social structures on the basis of their own values. . . . We must avoid intolerance, authoritarianism and any resort to arms. Democracy is the base from which to reach financial cooperation with rest of the world. . . . We don’t want political prisoners or exiles.”

Castro listened impassively to the other speeches, but he portrayed change as more threat than opportunity when his turn came to speak. “Unipolar hegemony sweeps the planet,” he said, attacking the United States. “Are we destined to return to domination?”

Castro’s concerns found no echo in the other presidential addresses. Castro never mentioned the United States by name. None of the other presidents mentioned Cuba, but a lot of what they said was at least tacitly critical.

“Nothing can be achieved outside the framework of democracy and freedom,” said Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem. “Peace, justice, dignity, and freedom: This is what the world has the right to expect of Latin America.”

Issues of trade, aid, debt, environment, immigration, access to Europe and a better deal for indigenous peoples variously preoccupied the other presidents.

“Changes in the world offer a great opportunity. We want to participate, guided by democracy and justice. . . . Democracy is an absolute value that allows no shading,” said Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello. “The Ibero-American community can do much for a new and more even-handed international order.”

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari called for common cause in expanding free trade and ending the stalled Uruguay Round of trade talks. He urged respect for international law, and, in what may have been a gesture to Castro, “respect for sovereignty . . . the observance of international law . . . tolerance of differences and cooperation among nations.”