| Chapter 2: | The Relations of Cuba with Latin America and the Caribbean: The Long and Winding Road of Reconciliation |
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the Seventh Summit of Non Aligned Nations Movement, during which Fidel Castro was elected the president of this important and strategic political organization of Third World countries.
On the Latin American scene, there were three particularly important diplomatic developments for Cuba during the 1970s. Luis Echevarria, the Mexican president, was the first president of Mexico to visit Cuba. Fidel Castro and Chilean Popular Unity president Salvador Allende traded state visits prior to Allende’s overthrow in a 1973 U.S.-inspired coup. The third event was an official visit to Cuba by Omar Torrijos, the president of Panama.
But, the event that distinguished a crucial time for Cuba’s gradual insertion into the region—an event which is a bad memory for the residents of Latin American countries—was the Malvinas War of April to June 1982. Those territories, which were claimed by the British in 1883, were occupied by the weakened Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri military dictatorship of Argentina in the false belief that a military victory would ignite a nationalist fervor behind the discredited government. The Argentine government’s hope of achieving an easy victory was dashed when the British government of Margaret Thatcher, itself unpopular in the United Kingdom, sent an expeditionary force to the islands to remove the Argentine force. The British launched their attack with the full logistical and political support of the United States’ Reagan administration. From an Argentine perspective, the U.S. action violated the Rio Treaty, which should have obligated its North American neighbor to come to its defense.
Fidel Castro as the president of the Non Aligned Nations Movement, in which Argentina participated as an observer, led a strong diplomatic offensive against the British and U.S. actions. In an unprecedented move, the anti-Communist Argentine government sent its foreign minister, Nicanor Costa Mendez, to Havana for consultations with members of the Cuban government, including President Fidel Castro. Many countries from the region expressed their solidarity with the Argentinean people and applauded Cuba’s position. The interesting fact is that a few months later, after the expected British victory, some of the most