Christopher Lauds Cuba’s Isolation by Latin America

In a speech that underscored the growing foreign policy cohesion in the Americas, Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Saturday heralded the hemisphere’s unity in isolating Cuba over the past week.

“After traveling across Latin America . . . let me say this to the leaders of Cuba: In defending your brutal and illegal actions of last Saturday, you are alone. In refusing to allow the Cuban people the democracy and human rights they desire and deserve, you are alone,” he told 900 members of the American Chamber of Commerce here.

During Christopher’s stops in El Salvador, Chile, Argentina and now Brazil, leaders have condemned Cuba’s Feb. 24 downing of two planes flown by Cuban exiles from Miami even before the secretary of state raised the issue, U.S. officials said. This has pleased--and surprised--Christopher.

In the past, most Latin American governments have opted to promote change in Cuba through diplomatic relations or trade, rather than isolation. But during Christopher’s Latin American stops over the past week, key officials have expressed deepening frustration with President Fidel Castro’s government over recent political clampdowns at home and the failure to move faster on economic reforms.

The growing consensus in the Americas goes beyond the current crisis with Havana, extending to such issues as weapons proliferation, terrorism and drug trafficking, say U.S. officials accompanying Christopher.

Next month, for example, leaders from North, South and Central America will meet in Lima, Peru, to adopt the hemisphere’s first joint strategy to fight terrorism.

A mini-summit last year in Buenos Aires produced new cooperation on money-laundering laws that is already hindering criminals and drug trafficking.

Christopher said that 1995 was a year that “proved the durability, not the fragility” of positive change in the Americas. But he added that there is still important work to do.

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To promote further joint action among the hemisphere’s 34 democracies, the United States will call for a second Summit of the Americas late next year or in early 1998, Christopher announced. The first summit was in 1994 in Miami.

Among the key goals is creation of a Free Trade Area to break down all commercial barriers by 2005.

Christopher’s five-nation, eight-day Latin American tour continues today with a stop in Manaus, in Brazil’s western Amazon. Trinidad and Tobago is the last stop on his tour.