Cuban–Latin American Relations in the Context of a Changing Hemisphere
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Cuban–Latin American Relations in the Context of a Changing Hemis ...

Chapter 2:  The Relations of Cuba with Latin America and the Caribbean: The Long and Winding Road of Reconciliation
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were embodied in the successful drive to suspend Cuba’s membership in the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1962. Cuba’s response to its expulsion from the OAS and its condemnation by the OAS as a “Marxist- Leninist” state was categorical. In his speech of July 26, 1964, which became known as the Declaration of Santiago, Fidel Castro warned all those in the hemisphere who supported plots against the revolution with the following words: “The Cuban government supports revolutionary movements in any country that conspire against our homeland.”6

During the following years, Cuba’s real and sustained support of guerrilla movements and political parties of the Left contributed to creating a virtual state of war between the island and its neighbors. This state of war was embodied in Che Guevara’s now-famous declaration at the First Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Latin America and Africa (Tri-Continental) celebrated in Havana in January 1966. It was Cuba’s intent, Guevara stated, to create “two, three Vietnams.” This statement was taken by many Latin American countries as a call for subversion against their governments.

Years later, in a 1984 conversation with journalist Patricia Sethi about the Central American civil wars of the 1980s, which occurred in the context of democratic openings in South America, Fidel Castro affirmed the following:

I don’t conceal that the revolutionary government of Cuba has offered its active solidarity to other Latin American revolutionaries where in countries like Nicaragua under Somoza democratic activity was impossible in the face of a brutal military regime. I also do not conceal that when an important group of Latin American countries supported the U.S. government’s blockade against us that we gave support to revolutionary movements that were willing to fight against such governments. But at this time I can assert categorically and challenge those that would contradict me that any government which has maintained respectful relations with Cuba has also received Cuba’s full respect.7

The topic of Cuba’s past relations with revolutionary movements has received much recent media attention with the publication of Castro’s