BRAZIL and Cuba

In Diario La Americas, published in Miami, Armando Valladares sharply attacked (7/24/03) President Lula da Sila of Brazil, accusing him of conniving with Fidel Castro. In London Lula blamed exiled Cubans living in the US for the continuing American "blockade" of Cuba. His foreign minister Celso Amorim, and his ambassador to Cuba, Tilden Santiago, an ex-priest who follows the liberation theology line and is an intimate friend of Castro, behave similarly. Lula da Silva is collaborating with the pro-Castro Movimento sem Terra (the landless movement), and he is to visit Havana in September. At the meeting of the Organization of American States in Santiago de Chile, Brazil and Venezuela blocked a US-sponsored resolution condemning Castro. At the same time, it would be unwise simply to dismiss the Brazilian Movement of the Landless as pro-Castro. Rural poverty is a very serious problem throughout Latin America. In Nicaragua hundreds of hungry peasants have marched on Managua.

Ronald Hilton - 8/3/03