Castro's Showpiece Summit

Cuba's anti-Americanism is endorsed by the nonaligned

Even as Washington worried about that Soviet brigade in Cuba, President Fidel Castro was luxuriating last week in an ego-boosting extravaganza. Basking in a tropical sun and bedecked with banners carrying anti-imperialist and anti-American slogans, Havana radiated a fiesta-like atmosphere as Presidents, Prime Ministers, dictators and Kings of 92 states flocked into the Cuban capital for the opening of the weeklong sixth summit of nonaligned nations. As host of the conference, Castro was seen and photographed with a wide variety of Third World leaders, ranging from Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, 87 -- the last surviving co-founder of the nonaligned movement -- to Communist fellow travelers like Viet Nam's Premier Pham Van Dong to such obscure eminences as Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuk. Castro and his aides orchestrated the arrival of celebrities well: one of the few discordant notes was struck by a brass band that mistakenly played the Egyptian national anthem as Castro greeted Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, one of Egypt's bitterest critics.

The Cuban leader made no secret of his determination to assert active leadership over the nonaligned movement and steer it in a more militant, pro-Soviet direction. The Havana summit was a major steppingstone toward a broadening of Cuba's international role -- although just what that role is varies with the perspective of the beholder. To Washington policymakers, Cuba is a cat's paw of the Soviet Union, dispatching armed mercenaries to Africa in exchange for financial and material support. To the Kremlin, Cuba is a faithful Communist ally that shares Moscow's interest in defeating imperialism and needs protection from a powerful and hostile U.S. To many Black African nations, Fidel Castro is a champion of anti-colonialism whose commitment to national liberation is backed up by some 45,000 soldiers, technicians and advisers scattered across the continent.

In Latin America, Cuba was for a long time perceived as an exporter of revolution; but suspicions have lessened with the cooling of Castro's interventionist activities in the region and the broadening of economic ties. Many regimes in the Caribbean area -- including the governments of Jamaica, Grenada, Guyana and Nicaragua -- look to Cuba as both a societal role model and a source of aid. To Castro himself, Cuba is a progressive, socialist and "Latin African" nation whose revolutionary achievements give it a right to act as a spokesman for the Third World.

Wearing his familiar olive-drab fatigues, Castro opened the nonaligned summit, which was held in Havana's Palace of Conferences, with an 80-minute fire-and-brimstone address denouncing "the Yankee imperialists and their old and new allies, by which I mean the Chinese government." That remark sent Peking's Ambassador Wang Zhanyuan storming out of the diplomatic gallery in protest. Minutes later, he was followed by Wayne Smith, head of the U.S. Interests Section attached to the Swiss embassy, who walked away when Castro referred to American plots to assassinate him. Justifying his African adventurism, Castro praised the "noble, self-sacrificing Cubans" who were giving their lives "fighting against the expansionism of the South African racist and other forms of imperialist attacks on human dignity and the integrity and independence of sister nations." The Cubans, he declared, were socialists and "radical revolutionaries," adding, "Yes, we are friends of the Soviet Union."

Stunned by this tough address, some Third World moderates had hoped that Yugoslavia's Tito would respond by giving the Cuban leader a stern lecture on the true principles of nonalignment. Instead, the movement's grand old man calmly urged the members to maintain their independence from the superpowers, to resist the influence of "bloc interests," "foreign interference" and "all forms of political and economic hegemony." It was, observers concluded, a subtle but ineffective antidote to what one Yugoslav diplomat called the "poison" of Castro's speech.

The contrast between the low-keyed octogenarian and the vigorous revolutionary seemed to symbolize a changing of the guard within the movement -- an impression that the Cubans were eager to foster. Said Singapore's Foreign Minister Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, a leading moderate: "These are chaps riding around with revolvers who don't mind shooting from the hip. Castro confidently flings down his glove. The old man says to the revolutionary, 'I'm not picking it up.' "

Tito's lackluster performance was at least partly redeemed by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, who subsequently delivered an eloquent plea for true nonalignment. "I am not quite sure that this movement has permanent enemies and permanent friends -- let alone natural ones," Nyerere declared. "But I am sure it has permanent interests." Should the nonaligned movement lean toward Moscow, he warned, "it would cease to be an influence on the world and fall apart." The Tanzanian leader was welcomed with a standing ovation, but he spoke at night and the chamber was half empty. Castro arranged the order of debate so that like-minded radicals would speak early in the day and get maximum exposure.

And speak they did. In rhetorical excesses that sometimes found Castro dozing off, speakers echoed his attacks on obvious targets of abuse. The U.S. was frequently denounced, as were the Muzorewa government in Zimbabwe Rhodesia and the white rulers of South Africa. Perhaps the worst punishment was reserved for Egypt, which Castro had excoriated in his keynote speech for "betraying the Arab cause" by signing the Camp David accord. When Egyptian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Butros Ghali vainly sought to defend his government, he was met by a flood of invective from the other Arab delegations. Even Jordan's King Hussein joined with his old adversary, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, in lambasting Anwar Sadat's "unilateral dealing with Israel."

The most significant battles took place in the back rooms, where committees were hammering out the language of the final communique and tackling procedural matters that would affect the future shape of the movement. Here, at least, the moderates put up a stiff fight, proposing hundreds of amendments to Cuban draft declarations in an effort to tone down the pro-Soviet thrust. Another attempt to curb Castro's power was a proposal to expand the membership of the Coordinating Bureau, which acts on behalf of the movement between triennial summit meetings. By gaining some of the additional seats, moderates hoped to check Cuban militancy over the next three years, when Castro will serve a chairman of the nonaligned movement.

TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott last week reported from Havana these conclusions on the summit and its consequences: "Castro has clearly succeeded in his main objectives. At the very least, Cuba has won the appearance of a ringing endorsement from the Third World of its military intervention in Africa. Though there have been dissenting and cautionary voices, the vocal majority have applauded Cuba's championship of liberation movements. In the future, Cuba and those countries and guerrilla groups seeking its aid will be able to point back to this summit and what will probably be called the 'Havana Declaration' as justification for further intervention.

"Castro has also succeeded in marshaling a consensus against the American peace initiatives in the Middle East and southern Africa. This is precisely what U.S. diplomats sought to avoid, through two months of feverish lobbying with nonaligned foreign ministers around the world. The failure of those efforts is particularly bad news, since the non-aligned summit amounts to a Third World caucus on the eve of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly. The U.S. peace moves in the Middle East and southern Africa are therefore likely to face strong opposition before the world body.

"To make matters worse, Castro may well ride the swell of his enhanced prestige straight into the Security Council, if the Cubans succeed in obtaining the rotating Latin American seat; their chances of doing so are rated good by many diplomatic observers (the holder of the seat is elected by the General Assembly every two years). If Castro should go to the U.N. this fall, he will appear as the foremost leader of the Third World -- and the firebrand spokesman for a kind of global anti-Americanism.''

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