President Michelle Bachelet has announced her intentions of visiting Cuba during her presidency. The last Chilean President to visit Cuba was Salvador Allende in 1972.
Bachelet made her intent clear at a meeting last December with Cuban Vice-chancellor Alejandro Gonzalez, second in command in foreign relations, in addition to the Chilean ambassadors to Cuba and the Cuban Ambassador in Chile.
Sources from the meeting revealed that Bachelet feels indebted to Cuba for housing Chilean refugees during the Pinochet dictatorship and that her feeling of gratitude is the main motive for the visit. A date has yet to be set.
Socialist Party Sen. Carlos Ominami visited Cuba early this month. Ominami, invited to the island by Vice-president Carlos Lage, spent ten days in Havana and met with dozens of officials.
Both Ominami and Chilean government sources revealed that a visit by Bachelet is eagerly awaited at the Cuban end. Cuba is eager to “enlist” countries that “comprehend the revolutionary process,” even if the countries themselves are not revolutionary.
The Cuban government is considering options for the visit, given its politically sensitive nature. One of the options informally considered was having Bachelet extend her tour of Colombia and Venezuela this April to visit the country. The Chilean government, however, rejected such a move outright, saying that the trip is not a “priority in Bachelet’s international agenda.”
“A Caracas-Havana trip could generate internal political conflicts too risky for the President to afford. [Cuban officials] understand that a visit must be prepared,” said Ominami, “It can’t be improvised; they don’t want the President to suffer any political cost, given that the issue is also one that’s unfortunately about internal politics.”
Ominami also said that the Castro government has “great expectations” for the visit. He said the government was hurt when Chile voted against Cuba before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2004, but that Bachelet was sensitive to the Cuban process and therefore closer ties were desired.
Ominami spoke of the importance of Cuba as a political force in the region, saying, “What one does positively with Cuba has a repercussion in other countries in the region,” principally Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.
SOURCE: LA TERCERA
By Shannon Garland (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
