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Statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Oscar Arias: Vain, mediocre and obsessed with being
a star
THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the Republic of Cuba has learned with profound
indignation of the most recent statements against
our country and President Fidel Castro pronounced by
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. They are not the
first and surely will not be the last.
This time, in a disrespectful and
completely unethical way, he compared Fidel to
deceased Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. He also
referred to the current situation of Latin America,
where, according to him, “there is a pack of
irresponsible demagogues and charlatans who are
playing with people’s aspirations,” in clear
reference to the new progressive leadership that is
emerging on the continent.
As everyone knows, the United
States government has always had one or another
opportunistic clown at hand disposed to follow its
aggressive anti-Cuba plans, the majority of them
shady policies that end up in the garbage dump of
history. With the new winds blowing in the region,
it would seem difficult to find someone willing to
lend themselves to the despicable task of acting as
Washington’s figurehead, but the egomaniacal Arias
has offered himself with unusual enthusiasm and
abject loyalty to the empire. At some point, it will
be known what his price is.
In case anyone has questions,
suffice it to illustrate with some examples:
—On March 11, 2006, President
Bush called to congratulate him on his election as
president of Costa Rica, and told him, “You can help
me a lot with respect to the new situation in Latin
America.”
—On August 28, 2006, Arias
published an article, “La Hora de la Democracia en
Cuba” (Democracy Time in Cuba), an almost exact
repetition of what U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Thomas Shannon had said about “transition in Cuba”
five days earlier.
—On September 23, 2006, Arias met
with John Maisto, the U.S. ambassador to the OAS,
and announced the anti-Cuban agenda he was planning
to take to the Ibero-American Summit in Montevideo,
and which finally he did not dare to bring out,
having discovered that his audience there would not
be conducive to his doing so.
—On December 6, during his
meeting at the White House with President Bush, he
extensively discussed “the Cuban case” and told
reporters, with the complacency of the master: “You
are well aware of my commitment to restoring
democracy to the Cuban people after 47 years of
dictatorship.”
Mr. Oscar Arias is a vulgar
mercenary.
President Arias shamelessly
supports the U.S. plans to annex Cuba and has no
respect for the heroic and selfless struggle of our
people for our independence and sovereignty.
President Arias, moreover, has no
moral authority to criticize Cuba or anyone else. In
his zeal to once again occupy the presidency of
Costa Rica, he used his influence to get the
country’s Constitution changed without the required
referendum. He did not hold elections in his party.
He was elected president with just 25% of the vote
in a process plagued by irregularities that have not
been clarified.
Instead of concerning himself
with Cuba’s future — something that is solely the
business of the Cuban people — he should be dealing
with corruption in his own country, which has even
involved a vice president and three former
presidents. He should be attending to the dignified
protests of the Costa Rican people, our brothers and
sisters, against a free trade agreement with the
United States that President Arias is attempting to
impose without listening to their demands. He should
be concerned about the 23% poverty rate that his
people are suffering, the level of citizen
insecurity, the lack of jobs, the insufficient
access to education for thousands of children and
young people, and the growing social inequalities in
that nation.
President Oscar Arias is,
moreover, out of context, and does not fit into the
new times of genuine and definitive Latin American
integration. He clashes like a servile parrot of
Yankee imperialism, and it is certain that nobody
will go to his political funeral.
He is a vain, mediocre person,
obsessed with being a star.
He cannot be taken seriously.
Havana, December 27, 2006
Translated by Granma International
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