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The OAS and the communist challenge
The OAS and the Communist When in the face of Castro’s repeated attempts to subvert the democratic institutions of Venezuela through such means as a three-tons arms cache deftitely traced back to Cuban arsenals, as well as proof of Cuban government support of terrorist groups in Venezuela, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, addressing the foreign ministers of the Latin American States, assembled in Washington during the Ninth Conference of the Organization of American States at the end of July, asked dramatically, “Is there any one of us who can say with assurance, ‘It cannot be my country tomorrow’?” he received no reply. But several days later in Mexico City, President Adolf0 Lopez Mateos replied in substance, “Yes, there is.” This was essentially the meaning of Mexico’s refusal to abide by the OAS resolution-adopted 15 to 4, with Venezuela as the complainant abstaining-to impose mandatory diplomatic and economic sanctions against Fidelist Cuba. Mexico’s position thus dramatized not only this particular political split but the most serious crisis in the recent history of inter-American relations. Though Bolivia and Chile later accepted the majority rule decision and Uruguay deferred a statement of its position because of the complicated nature of its executive, but is most likely to go along with the OAS decision, Mexico’s attitude was a challenge to the very basis of the OAS. Indeed, to the surprise of trained observers, even Chile saw fit to go along with the OAS resolution, when, anticipating the outcome of the Chilean presidential elections of September 4, President Jorge Alessandri broke off diplomatic relations with Castrols Cuba. In the event Senator Frei is elected President, he will most likely accept his predecessor’s fm’t accompli. This application of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, commonly known as the Rio Treaty, created in many respects a worse situation than the one which e&ted before the imposition of collective sanctions against Cuba. The fact that communist sub version in Latin America stemmed from the island of Cuba, the center of organized indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare, was actually challenged by the four foreign ministers who voted against this OAS resolution to impose sanctions. Why
Mexico
Voted
Against
OAS
Sanctions
Although the Mexican position is bolstered by numerous legal explanations, behind this legalistic shield there is a complex mixture of anti-majoritarian, anti-OAS, or more exactly, anti-American attitudes. These attitudes seem reasonable to zealously nationalistic sectors of opinion in Latin America who s.ympathize with any Latin American foreign policy that is totally independent of the official Washington line. The speedy Mexican refusal is also explicable in terms of Mpez Mateos’ personality. Lopez Mateos, who during his six-year presidential incumbency has weaned Mexican foreign policy away from Washington’s ministra-
.8
Challenge
tions, is proud of his achievement. So are the Mexican people, who refer to him as Mexico’s De Gaulle. This does not mean that Lopez Mateos is hostile to the United States: the Chamizal Treaty, though it benefits Mexico more than the United States, is a contribution to the good neighbor approach. But precisely because of the benefits to Mexico under the Chamizal Treaty, Lopez Mateos is sensitive to the charge that he might be “paying” for Chamizal by an anti-Castro position. Lopez Mateos has, moreover, always maintained that the Cuban problem belongs in the UN rather than in the OAS. He has consistently pointed out that under Article 53 of the United Nations Charter, regional sanctions are illegal unless approved by the Security Council. Hence, the question of Cuba should be brought before the UN Security Council and the decision on sanctions rendered by the International Court of Justice. He promised to abide by collective sanctions, provided the World Court upheld their legality. The outgoing Mexi-
Guest Author: Max Azicri Born in Havana, Feb. 24, 1934, and a member of the Cuban Bar since 1958, Max Azicri was awarded the LL.D. degree in 1959 by the Havana University Law School and the same year became an official in the Treasury Department of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government. Having been a writer on the Havana Periodiw Exe&or in 1956-57, Dr. Azicri accompanied Fidel Castro as a journalist on the latter’s trips to the United States and South America, April 15 - May 8, 1959. He then worked as Me&o correspondent of Havana’s Diario Libre and for the Caracas (Venezuela) newspapers Lu Eifera and El Mundo, and toured as a journalist in Western Europe and the Middle East. Dr. Azicri came to the United States again in September, 1960, when Dr. Castro visited the United Nations and met with Nikita Sergeyevich KhrushchEv in New York. Always a democratic opponent of Communism-he was an organizer of the Front of Cuban Anti-Communist Lawyers in 1958, which was anti-Batista as well as anti-Communist-Dr. Azicri finally broke with the Castro regime. On Nov. 2, 1960, he arrived from Havana in Miami, Florida, as a political refugee. Active among patriotic organizations of Cuban exiles since then, Dr. Azicri has travelled widely as a journalist in all the Latin American countries and has delivered lectures, among other places, at the University of Conception and the Chilean Technical University of Santiago. He has also spoken over various Latin American radio stations and has worked as a roving correspondent in Latin America for the Miami, Florida, Avunce. He is the author of “Cuba: Crisis and Challenge for Latin America” in: Estudios Sobre El Comunismo, a bi-monthly (Santiago, Chile, Jan.-Feb. rg6z), “Unstable Nature of Diplomatic Relations” (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1961) and of a study on the judicial status of Cubans under Castro’s regime (IgSl) for the Chilean Bar Association. From January to June, 1963, Dr. Azicri was a member of the Cuban unit in the United States Army at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Since September, 1963, he has been a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Southern California. He is now at work on a comparative study of nationalism in Mexico, Cuba and Panama. He is a student member of the American Political Science Association and of the American Society of International Law.
can President has stated at a press conference in Los Angeles early this year that, since Cuba is no longer a member of the OAS, while it is still a member of the UN, the latter is the proper place to deal with the Cuban problem. Lopez Mateos, aware that while his successor, Gustav0 Diaz Ordaz, detested by the leftists in the PRI, would have gone along with the OAS majority decision, he would just as soon go along with the current foreign policy of Lopez Mateos. This is why Lopez Mateos most likely decided, instead of passing the problem to his successor, to confront him with a fait accompli. This individualistic decision of the outgoing Mexican President not only undermines the effectiveness of the collective sanctions voted by the OAS majority, but also provides Castro with the opportunity to seek the support of all the “anti-imperialist” elements in any United Nations meeting dealing with Communist Cuba. The independent existence of the Western regional organization was thus put into an equivocal position by the Lopez Mateos approach, for it denied the OAS the right to legislate its own policy on a regional basis and to apply sanctions to law-breaking states in the Western Hemisphere. Needless to say, it made the Monroe Doctrine look as obsolete as a crinoline hoop skirt. Lopez Mateos seems to view the OAS as good enough to provide the economic benefits of the Alliance for Progress but as inadequate in dealing with the problem of Communist subversion. The first time that the Rio Treaty was applied, with the OAS likewise convoked by Venezuela, because of a frustrated attempt to assassinate its former President Romulo Betancourt in 1960, it proposed sanctions against the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. In that OAS conference, Mexico willingly voted with other Latin American states in favor of sanctions. Cuba, already ruled by Castro, just as eagerly approved the sanctions under the Reciprocal Assistance Treaty. The aftermath of that collective decision was the assassination of Trujillo by fellow-Dominicans and, after a few months of isolation within the hemisphere, the overthrow of the Trujillo regime. It is maintained by those who voted in favor of sanctions for Trujillo and against sanctions for Castro, that while Trujillo’s regime was the kind of authoritarian autocratic dictatorship with which the Western Hemisphere states could cope by means of sanctions, the Castro regime, being Communist, has worldwide ramifications beyond the power of the Western Hemisphere states. The OAS had the practical capacity to isolate the Dominican Republic by economic sanctions, because its trade was confined almost entirely to the countries of the Western Hemisphere and Western Europe, with the United States as the most important market. Trujillo’s Dominican Republic did not enjoy the special interest and protection of any great nuclear power hostile to the United States. Problem
of Dealing
with
Fidelist
Cuba
Because of the special interest of the “socialist” countries in Fide&t Cuba, intensified by the competitive nature of the Sino-Soviet conflict for a power po11 4 JULY-A~~u~~,l964
sition in that island bastion next door to Canmunism’s ‘Number One Enemy, Castro has achieved a measure of immunity from economic pressure which renders OAS sanctions practically useless. This situation, moreover, was aggravated by the inconsistencies and vacillations of U.S. policy vis-a-tis the Communist powers (for example, wheat sales to the U.S.S.R. by American traders while the United States insisted on an economic quarantine of Cuba) and by the fact that America’s best allies remain unconvinced that American policy toward Cuba is feasible and worthy of their support. The problem of dealing with Fidel&t Cuba (unless it is solved within a reasonable time) may well prove to be but a curtain-raiser to the far bigger problems developing in Latin America. Whether the winner in the Chilean elections is Eduardo Frei or Salvador Allende, the developing situation presents de OAS with a Hobson’s choice. If Senator Allende becomes President of Chile, he will sooner or later secure his immunity from OAS pressures by following Fidel Castro’s example. He will not only immediately reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba but he will forthwith open Chile’s doors wide to comradely intercourse with all the “socialist” countries. In the event Senator Frei is inaugurated President of Chile, he will find his efforts at pursuing his policy of “revolution with freedom” frustrated by formidable opposition from the political forces behind Allende. Whether the victory is Frei’s or Allende’s, its aftermath will initiate a new phase in the struggle between two streams of political leftism. What will the OAS do in the event of Dr. Allende’s election, when he carries out his promise to re-establish relations with Cuba? Unlike Mpez Mateos, Allende, who likewise challenges the legality of the OAS decision, does not offer the alternative of testing it before the International Court of Justice. Allende will rather relish having the Cuban problem threshed out at the United Nations, and, indeed, would welcome the opportunity to present his own views there. In the event the OAS assumes toward Allende’s Chile an approach similar to the one it has assumed toward Fidel& Cuba, in the spirit of the 1962 Punta de1 Este resolution- (expulsion of Cuba from the OAS because of its ties with the Soviet Government and because of the Communist nature of its regime)-Allende, even if he does not leave, or is not expelled from the OAS, as Cuba has been, will, to all intents and purposes, ignore the OAS and favor the United Nations. There is, moreover, a possibility that Senator Frei, if elected President of Chile, may likewise be forced to reestablish relations with Fidelist Cuba, because of strong pressures from the left wing of his own party, led by Congressman Radomiro Tomic, let alone the enormous pressure from the Allende camp-the Communist-controlled trade unions, peasant organizations, teachers, certain professional elements and most of the bureaucrats struggling against rising inflation. Nevertheless, Frei will be so preoccupied with internal reform that he may not wish to complicate his position by re-establishing diplomatic relations with Castro’s Cuba. He may well choose to let well enough alone.
9
OAS
Future
in Balance
International Communist Front Conferences
What, then, is the future of the OAS? In the event Allende becomes President of Chile, there is the possibility of a Havana-Georgetown-Santiago de facto axis, especially if British Guiana becomes an independent Marxist government despite London’s temporizing. This may well inspire and indeed trigger off a proliferation of Marxist governments throughout Latin America. The equivocal policies of the United States in dealing with Fidelist Cuba-for example, failure to achieve a clear-cut victory in the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, failure to achieve the complete withdrawal of the Soviet presence after the October, 1962 missile-crisis confrontation, failure to enforce non-interference in Cuban internal affairs by other powers as well as by the United States as well as the policy of both the British and American governments of hoping against hope that just one more election would make Cheddi Jagan fade out of the picture-such policies and measures have tended to aggravate rather than help solve the problems posed by the incursion of Communism into the Western Hemisphere. While there may have been a moral, if not a legal, basis for imposing an economic quarantine against Fidelist Cuba, because the Communist government there was imposed by force and fraud perpetrated against the Cuban people, no such basis for proceeding similarly against the legally elected Allende government in Chile would exist. The quarantine of Cuba, moreover, has not been sufficiently effective in achieving the ultimate objective of its liberation from Communist tyranny. It would, therefore, hardly recommend itself as a feasible policy in the event of such hostile acts by Allende’s government against American interests as the confiscation of American-owned copper mines and other American investments. No matter how generous, kind and understanding might be America’s policy toward the Allende government, not only the propaganda of Allende’s Chile but of all the “socialist” and “liberal” organs throughout the world will insist that “Socialist Chile” had been “driven into the arms of the Communists” by “Yankee imperialism.” The very logic of Allende’s electoral campaign makes this development inevitable. But in the event Senator Frei is elected President of Chile, especially if the vote he garners is substantial, the situation will be quite different both for Chile internally and for Latin America as a whole. The defeat of Allende would signify defeat of the Communists and their political fellow-travellers in their attempt to achieve power by legal electoral means. This defeat, moreover, would come on the heels of the defeat suffered by parallel forces, the Castro-sponsored FALN -Fuerzas Armadas Liberation National (Armed Forces of National Liberation) -in Venezuela, where the attempt was to seize power by “revolutionary” means-that is, by subversion, conspiracy, terror and
SEPT.
16-23
World Youth Forum see: Affairs, 2, p. 23.
WFDY (World Federation of Youth)
Moscow, U.S.S.R.
IMA (Intemational Medical Association)
Prague, C.S.S.R.
WFTU (World Federation of Trade Unions)
Budapest, Hungary
SEPT.
$h Congress, Communist Vol. 2, No.
OCT. ‘9
General
OCT. 25-30
Congress for International Co-operation and Disarmament
WCP (World Council of Peace)
Sydney, Australia
Nov.
Council
WIDF (Women’s International Democratic Federation)
Bulgaria
Nov.
Conference European Security
WCP (World Council of Peace)
Salzburg, Austria
Council
on
Additional
Developments
The World Council of Peace (WCP) is helping to organize a number of regional meetings. After keeping in the background, it had offered its “full support” to the Conference for the Denuclearization of the Mediterranean in Algiers. A Congress for International Co-operation and Disamiament is to be held in Sydney in October, also with WCP support. Several WCP members are on the Provisional Committee and the WCP will send a representative delegation. The WCP’s connection with the Conference on European Security has now been admitted by WCP’s head; as chairman of its Presidential Committee, the eminent British nuclear physicist Professor J. D. Bemal, has referred to “the part we are playing in the preparations.” At the Budapest meeting of the Presidential Committee (April 2527), Bemal proposed a conference on Southeast Asia, to be held in a neutral Afro-Asian country. The WFDY has given its full support to an East German plan for a European Youth Conference against Fascism and War in East Berlin in August. Preparations for the 2nd World Youth Forum continued: 132 organizations have stated that they will attend. The site of the 9th World Youth Festival will be Algiers. Since visiting Cuba, WFDY and IUS delegations have gone to Algiers and Sofia, but have only said that the choice rests with an “Assembly of National and International Organizations of Youth and Students.” The Union of Italian Women has decided to withdraw from the directing bodies of the WIDF and become an associate member only, because of disagreement with the policy and methods of the WIDF. The Commission for Information and Co-operation among Latin American Journalists, a regional body of the Intemational Organization of Journalists (IOJ), plans to hold a Latin American Congress of Professional Journalists to set up a Latin American Journalist Confederation. The Chinese-sponsored Afro-Asian Workers’ Conference planned for mid-1964 will not take place until June, 1965. An Asian Economic Seminar held in Pyongyang June 15-23 was organized by the Chinese-controlled Asian Economic Bureau and took place without the knowledge of several members of the Bureau: namely India, the Soviet Union and Pakistan.
(Continued on Next Page) ?O
COMMUNIST
AFFAIRS
ruthless sabotage of the nation’s economy. The overthrow of the_Joao Goulart government in Brazil, moreover, was motivated by fear of communist infiltration. Frei’s election would thus mark the third major blow to the pro-Communist forces in Latin America. OAS
and
U.S.
Foreign
Frankly speaking, OAS policy cannot, in the nature of things, be any more effective than the Latin American policy of the United States. The latter in turn cannot be formulated in isolation from the world-wide interests and commitments of the United States. In the face of the increasing influences of Communism throughout the world, especially through the implementation of the policy of peaceful coetistence and of the attempts to achieve Communist power by legal means, the United States and its allies need a policy of mutual inter-relations closely coordinated with a long-range policy vis-a-vis the challenge of Communism. The failure to isolate Fidelist Cuba completely and not only among its Latin American neighbors, attests to this need. The Alliance for Progress policy, however noble its intentions, cannot by itself come to grips with this challenge in Latin America. Of what use are its financial benefits when, at the same time, the beneficiaries cannot break through the limitations of their traditional status as providers of raw materials at unstable, and all too often, ruinously disadvantageous prices? As long as this situation, of obvious benefit to Communist political strategy, is allowed to persist, and as long as the United States, and with it, the OAS, confine themselves to an ad hoc “wait and see” policy of merely attempting to meet emergencies as they arise, the problems of Castro’s Cuba, of Mexican non-compliance with the OAS resolution on sanctions against Cuba, and countless other problems will remain unsolved and can only lead to their proliferation.-M.A. JULY-AUGUST, 1964
rOAOBbl HA 3,40POBYIO
Policy
But the problems of Latin America as well as the problems of United States relations with its Latin American neighbors cannot be viewed exclusively in terms of pro- or anti-Communism. The Latin American countries have their own ways of life, their own national goals, their specific problems, in the solution of which the United States could be of some help. The possible establishment of a Christian-Democratic government under President Frei’s slogan of “revolution with freedom” for example would present an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate the fallacy of the charge of “Yankee imperialism.” Although Frei is not likely to nationalize by confiscation American copper interests in Chile, he will most likely, in the national interests of his country, try to exploit this national asset in markets that could well be construed as augmentation of Chile’s commercial relations with the Sino-Soviet bloc. The problem here is the strategic nature of copper; hence, the test for the United States will be a difficult one. A problem of this nature lends itself more easily to a mutually satisfactory solution if it is tackled sincerely, as between good neighbors, in good t&+-that is, long before the issues it poses are dramatized by propaganda and emotional politicking
11 4
t C 60AbHOf
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THE GUILTY BLAMING THE INNOCENT (s boZrwi golovy na zdorovuyu) is the sense of the headline for the 3 cartoons by Boris Efmov (born igoo as Boris Efimovich Zozulya) , a leading political cartoonist of the Soviet Union, in Izvestiia, August 16, 1964. The inscriptions are: “Toward North Vietnam” on the warhead and “Complaint against North Vietnam in the Security Council” on the umbrella; “For Cyprus” around the noose of the lariat and “Complaint against the ‘intractability’ of Cyprus” on the umbrella; “Against Cuba” on the cannon and “Complaint against Cuba in the OAS” on the umbrella. The text states: Commenting on last week’s news, Artist Boris Efimov noted one characteristic trait: attempts by the aggressors to cover up their tracks. American aviation once again attacked the territory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Washington hastened to lodge a ‘complaint’ in the Security Council against Turkish aeroplanes shot up and . . . the DRV! bombed Cyprus, while Ankara, following the example of its American partner, likewise lodged a ‘complaint’ against . . . Cyprus! Well., and, of course, the United States, feigning the part of the innocent lamb, complains against Cuba, which presumably threatens the American colossus. But who can possibly be deceived by these clumsy maneuvers of the NATO diplomats?
11
Mexico
Voted
Against
OAS
Sanctions
Although the Mexican position is bolstered by numerous legal explanations, behind this legalistic shield there is a complex mixture of anti-majoritarian, anti-OAS, or more exactly, anti-American attitudes. These attitudes seem reasonable to zealously nationalistic sectors of opinion in Latin America who s.ympathize with any Latin American foreign policy that is totally independent of the official Washington line. The speedy Mexican refusal is also explicable in terms of Mpez Mateos’ personality. Lopez Mateos, who during his six-year presidential incumbency has weaned Mexican foreign policy away from Washington’s ministra-
.8
Challenge
tions, is proud of his achievement. So are the Mexican people, who refer to him as Mexico’s De Gaulle. This does not mean that Lopez Mateos is hostile to the United States: the Chamizal Treaty, though it benefits Mexico more than the United States, is a contribution to the good neighbor approach. But precisely because of the benefits to Mexico under the Chamizal Treaty, Lopez Mateos is sensitive to the charge that he might be “paying” for Chamizal by an anti-Castro position. Lopez Mateos has, moreover, always maintained that the Cuban problem belongs in the UN rather than in the OAS. He has consistently pointed out that under Article 53 of the United Nations Charter, regional sanctions are illegal unless approved by the Security Council. Hence, the question of Cuba should be brought before the UN Security Council and the decision on sanctions rendered by the International Court of Justice. He promised to abide by collective sanctions, provided the World Court upheld their legality. The outgoing Mexi-
Guest Author: Max Azicri Born in Havana, Feb. 24, 1934, and a member of the Cuban Bar since 1958, Max Azicri was awarded the LL.D. degree in 1959 by the Havana University Law School and the same year became an official in the Treasury Department of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government. Having been a writer on the Havana Periodiw Exe&or in 1956-57, Dr. Azicri accompanied Fidel Castro as a journalist on the latter’s trips to the United States and South America, April 15 - May 8, 1959. He then worked as Me&o correspondent of Havana’s Diario Libre and for the Caracas (Venezuela) newspapers Lu Eifera and El Mundo, and toured as a journalist in Western Europe and the Middle East. Dr. Azicri came to the United States again in September, 1960, when Dr. Castro visited the United Nations and met with Nikita Sergeyevich KhrushchEv in New York. Always a democratic opponent of Communism-he was an organizer of the Front of Cuban Anti-Communist Lawyers in 1958, which was anti-Batista as well as anti-Communist-Dr. Azicri finally broke with the Castro regime. On Nov. 2, 1960, he arrived from Havana in Miami, Florida, as a political refugee. Active among patriotic organizations of Cuban exiles since then, Dr. Azicri has travelled widely as a journalist in all the Latin American countries and has delivered lectures, among other places, at the University of Conception and the Chilean Technical University of Santiago. He has also spoken over various Latin American radio stations and has worked as a roving correspondent in Latin America for the Miami, Florida, Avunce. He is the author of “Cuba: Crisis and Challenge for Latin America” in: Estudios Sobre El Comunismo, a bi-monthly (Santiago, Chile, Jan.-Feb. rg6z), “Unstable Nature of Diplomatic Relations” (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1961) and of a study on the judicial status of Cubans under Castro’s regime (IgSl) for the Chilean Bar Association. From January to June, 1963, Dr. Azicri was a member of the Cuban unit in the United States Army at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Since September, 1963, he has been a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Southern California. He is now at work on a comparative study of nationalism in Mexico, Cuba and Panama. He is a student member of the American Political Science Association and of the American Society of International Law.
can President has stated at a press conference in Los Angeles early this year that, since Cuba is no longer a member of the OAS, while it is still a member of the UN, the latter is the proper place to deal with the Cuban problem. Lopez Mateos, aware that while his successor, Gustav0 Diaz Ordaz, detested by the leftists in the PRI, would have gone along with the OAS majority decision, he would just as soon go along with the current foreign policy of Lopez Mateos. This is why Lopez Mateos most likely decided, instead of passing the problem to his successor, to confront him with a fait accompli. This individualistic decision of the outgoing Mexican President not only undermines the effectiveness of the collective sanctions voted by the OAS majority, but also provides Castro with the opportunity to seek the support of all the “anti-imperialist” elements in any United Nations meeting dealing with Communist Cuba. The independent existence of the Western regional organization was thus put into an equivocal position by the Lopez Mateos approach, for it denied the OAS the right to legislate its own policy on a regional basis and to apply sanctions to law-breaking states in the Western Hemisphere. Needless to say, it made the Monroe Doctrine look as obsolete as a crinoline hoop skirt. Lopez Mateos seems to view the OAS as good enough to provide the economic benefits of the Alliance for Progress but as inadequate in dealing with the problem of Communist subversion. The first time that the Rio Treaty was applied, with the OAS likewise convoked by Venezuela, because of a frustrated attempt to assassinate its former President Romulo Betancourt in 1960, it proposed sanctions against the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. In that OAS conference, Mexico willingly voted with other Latin American states in favor of sanctions. Cuba, already ruled by Castro, just as eagerly approved the sanctions under the Reciprocal Assistance Treaty. The aftermath of that collective decision was the assassination of Trujillo by fellow-Dominicans and, after a few months of isolation within the hemisphere, the overthrow of the Trujillo regime. It is maintained by those who voted in favor of sanctions for Trujillo and against sanctions for Castro, that while Trujillo’s regime was the kind of authoritarian autocratic dictatorship with which the Western Hemisphere states could cope by means of sanctions, the Castro regime, being Communist, has worldwide ramifications beyond the power of the Western Hemisphere states. The OAS had the practical capacity to isolate the Dominican Republic by economic sanctions, because its trade was confined almost entirely to the countries of the Western Hemisphere and Western Europe, with the United States as the most important market. Trujillo’s Dominican Republic did not enjoy the special interest and protection of any great nuclear power hostile to the United States. Problem
of Dealing
with
Fidelist
Cuba
Because of the special interest of the “socialist” countries in Fide&t Cuba, intensified by the competitive nature of the Sino-Soviet conflict for a power po11 4 JULY-A~~u~~,l964
sition in that island bastion next door to Canmunism’s ‘Number One Enemy, Castro has achieved a measure of immunity from economic pressure which renders OAS sanctions practically useless. This situation, moreover, was aggravated by the inconsistencies and vacillations of U.S. policy vis-a-tis the Communist powers (for example, wheat sales to the U.S.S.R. by American traders while the United States insisted on an economic quarantine of Cuba) and by the fact that America’s best allies remain unconvinced that American policy toward Cuba is feasible and worthy of their support. The problem of dealing with Fidel&t Cuba (unless it is solved within a reasonable time) may well prove to be but a curtain-raiser to the far bigger problems developing in Latin America. Whether the winner in the Chilean elections is Eduardo Frei or Salvador Allende, the developing situation presents de OAS with a Hobson’s choice. If Senator Allende becomes President of Chile, he will sooner or later secure his immunity from OAS pressures by following Fidel Castro’s example. He will not only immediately reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba but he will forthwith open Chile’s doors wide to comradely intercourse with all the “socialist” countries. In the event Senator Frei is inaugurated President of Chile, he will find his efforts at pursuing his policy of “revolution with freedom” frustrated by formidable opposition from the political forces behind Allende. Whether the victory is Frei’s or Allende’s, its aftermath will initiate a new phase in the struggle between two streams of political leftism. What will the OAS do in the event of Dr. Allende’s election, when he carries out his promise to re-establish relations with Cuba? Unlike Mpez Mateos, Allende, who likewise challenges the legality of the OAS decision, does not offer the alternative of testing it before the International Court of Justice. Allende will rather relish having the Cuban problem threshed out at the United Nations, and, indeed, would welcome the opportunity to present his own views there. In the event the OAS assumes toward Allende’s Chile an approach similar to the one it has assumed toward Fidel& Cuba, in the spirit of the 1962 Punta de1 Este resolution- (expulsion of Cuba from the OAS because of its ties with the Soviet Government and because of the Communist nature of its regime)-Allende, even if he does not leave, or is not expelled from the OAS, as Cuba has been, will, to all intents and purposes, ignore the OAS and favor the United Nations. There is, moreover, a possibility that Senator Frei, if elected President of Chile, may likewise be forced to reestablish relations with Fidelist Cuba, because of strong pressures from the left wing of his own party, led by Congressman Radomiro Tomic, let alone the enormous pressure from the Allende camp-the Communist-controlled trade unions, peasant organizations, teachers, certain professional elements and most of the bureaucrats struggling against rising inflation. Nevertheless, Frei will be so preoccupied with internal reform that he may not wish to complicate his position by re-establishing diplomatic relations with Castro’s Cuba. He may well choose to let well enough alone.
9
OAS
Future
in Balance
International Communist Front Conferences
What, then, is the future of the OAS? In the event Allende becomes President of Chile, there is the possibility of a Havana-Georgetown-Santiago de facto axis, especially if British Guiana becomes an independent Marxist government despite London’s temporizing. This may well inspire and indeed trigger off a proliferation of Marxist governments throughout Latin America. The equivocal policies of the United States in dealing with Fidelist Cuba-for example, failure to achieve a clear-cut victory in the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, failure to achieve the complete withdrawal of the Soviet presence after the October, 1962 missile-crisis confrontation, failure to enforce non-interference in Cuban internal affairs by other powers as well as by the United States as well as the policy of both the British and American governments of hoping against hope that just one more election would make Cheddi Jagan fade out of the picture-such policies and measures have tended to aggravate rather than help solve the problems posed by the incursion of Communism into the Western Hemisphere. While there may have been a moral, if not a legal, basis for imposing an economic quarantine against Fidelist Cuba, because the Communist government there was imposed by force and fraud perpetrated against the Cuban people, no such basis for proceeding similarly against the legally elected Allende government in Chile would exist. The quarantine of Cuba, moreover, has not been sufficiently effective in achieving the ultimate objective of its liberation from Communist tyranny. It would, therefore, hardly recommend itself as a feasible policy in the event of such hostile acts by Allende’s government against American interests as the confiscation of American-owned copper mines and other American investments. No matter how generous, kind and understanding might be America’s policy toward the Allende government, not only the propaganda of Allende’s Chile but of all the “socialist” and “liberal” organs throughout the world will insist that “Socialist Chile” had been “driven into the arms of the Communists” by “Yankee imperialism.” The very logic of Allende’s electoral campaign makes this development inevitable. But in the event Senator Frei is elected President of Chile, especially if the vote he garners is substantial, the situation will be quite different both for Chile internally and for Latin America as a whole. The defeat of Allende would signify defeat of the Communists and their political fellow-travellers in their attempt to achieve power by legal electoral means. This defeat, moreover, would come on the heels of the defeat suffered by parallel forces, the Castro-sponsored FALN -Fuerzas Armadas Liberation National (Armed Forces of National Liberation) -in Venezuela, where the attempt was to seize power by “revolutionary” means-that is, by subversion, conspiracy, terror and
SEPT.
16-23
World Youth Forum see: Affairs, 2, p. 23.
WFDY (World Federation of Youth)
Moscow, U.S.S.R.
IMA (Intemational Medical Association)
Prague, C.S.S.R.
WFTU (World Federation of Trade Unions)
Budapest, Hungary
SEPT.
$h Congress, Communist Vol. 2, No.
OCT. ‘9
General
OCT. 25-30
Congress for International Co-operation and Disarmament
WCP (World Council of Peace)
Sydney, Australia
Nov.
Council
WIDF (Women’s International Democratic Federation)
Bulgaria
Nov.
Conference European Security
WCP (World Council of Peace)
Salzburg, Austria
Council
on
Additional
Developments
The World Council of Peace (WCP) is helping to organize a number of regional meetings. After keeping in the background, it had offered its “full support” to the Conference for the Denuclearization of the Mediterranean in Algiers. A Congress for International Co-operation and Disamiament is to be held in Sydney in October, also with WCP support. Several WCP members are on the Provisional Committee and the WCP will send a representative delegation. The WCP’s connection with the Conference on European Security has now been admitted by WCP’s head; as chairman of its Presidential Committee, the eminent British nuclear physicist Professor J. D. Bemal, has referred to “the part we are playing in the preparations.” At the Budapest meeting of the Presidential Committee (April 2527), Bemal proposed a conference on Southeast Asia, to be held in a neutral Afro-Asian country. The WFDY has given its full support to an East German plan for a European Youth Conference against Fascism and War in East Berlin in August. Preparations for the 2nd World Youth Forum continued: 132 organizations have stated that they will attend. The site of the 9th World Youth Festival will be Algiers. Since visiting Cuba, WFDY and IUS delegations have gone to Algiers and Sofia, but have only said that the choice rests with an “Assembly of National and International Organizations of Youth and Students.” The Union of Italian Women has decided to withdraw from the directing bodies of the WIDF and become an associate member only, because of disagreement with the policy and methods of the WIDF. The Commission for Information and Co-operation among Latin American Journalists, a regional body of the Intemational Organization of Journalists (IOJ), plans to hold a Latin American Congress of Professional Journalists to set up a Latin American Journalist Confederation. The Chinese-sponsored Afro-Asian Workers’ Conference planned for mid-1964 will not take place until June, 1965. An Asian Economic Seminar held in Pyongyang June 15-23 was organized by the Chinese-controlled Asian Economic Bureau and took place without the knowledge of several members of the Bureau: namely India, the Soviet Union and Pakistan.
(Continued on Next Page) ?O
COMMUNIST
AFFAIRS
ruthless sabotage of the nation’s economy. The overthrow of the_Joao Goulart government in Brazil, moreover, was motivated by fear of communist infiltration. Frei’s election would thus mark the third major blow to the pro-Communist forces in Latin America. OAS
and
U.S.
Foreign
Frankly speaking, OAS policy cannot, in the nature of things, be any more effective than the Latin American policy of the United States. The latter in turn cannot be formulated in isolation from the world-wide interests and commitments of the United States. In the face of the increasing influences of Communism throughout the world, especially through the implementation of the policy of peaceful coetistence and of the attempts to achieve Communist power by legal means, the United States and its allies need a policy of mutual inter-relations closely coordinated with a long-range policy vis-a-vis the challenge of Communism. The failure to isolate Fidelist Cuba completely and not only among its Latin American neighbors, attests to this need. The Alliance for Progress policy, however noble its intentions, cannot by itself come to grips with this challenge in Latin America. Of what use are its financial benefits when, at the same time, the beneficiaries cannot break through the limitations of their traditional status as providers of raw materials at unstable, and all too often, ruinously disadvantageous prices? As long as this situation, of obvious benefit to Communist political strategy, is allowed to persist, and as long as the United States, and with it, the OAS, confine themselves to an ad hoc “wait and see” policy of merely attempting to meet emergencies as they arise, the problems of Castro’s Cuba, of Mexican non-compliance with the OAS resolution on sanctions against Cuba, and countless other problems will remain unsolved and can only lead to their proliferation.-M.A. JULY-AUGUST, 1964
rOAOBbl HA 3,40POBYIO
Policy
But the problems of Latin America as well as the problems of United States relations with its Latin American neighbors cannot be viewed exclusively in terms of pro- or anti-Communism. The Latin American countries have their own ways of life, their own national goals, their specific problems, in the solution of which the United States could be of some help. The possible establishment of a Christian-Democratic government under President Frei’s slogan of “revolution with freedom” for example would present an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate the fallacy of the charge of “Yankee imperialism.” Although Frei is not likely to nationalize by confiscation American copper interests in Chile, he will most likely, in the national interests of his country, try to exploit this national asset in markets that could well be construed as augmentation of Chile’s commercial relations with the Sino-Soviet bloc. The problem here is the strategic nature of copper; hence, the test for the United States will be a difficult one. A problem of this nature lends itself more easily to a mutually satisfactory solution if it is tackled sincerely, as between good neighbors, in good t&+-that is, long before the issues it poses are dramatized by propaganda and emotional politicking
11 4
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THE GUILTY BLAMING THE INNOCENT (s boZrwi golovy na zdorovuyu) is the sense of the headline for the 3 cartoons by Boris Efmov (born igoo as Boris Efimovich Zozulya) , a leading political cartoonist of the Soviet Union, in Izvestiia, August 16, 1964. The inscriptions are: “Toward North Vietnam” on the warhead and “Complaint against North Vietnam in the Security Council” on the umbrella; “For Cyprus” around the noose of the lariat and “Complaint against the ‘intractability’ of Cyprus” on the umbrella; “Against Cuba” on the cannon and “Complaint against Cuba in the OAS” on the umbrella. The text states: Commenting on last week’s news, Artist Boris Efimov noted one characteristic trait: attempts by the aggressors to cover up their tracks. American aviation once again attacked the territory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Washington hastened to lodge a ‘complaint’ in the Security Council against Turkish aeroplanes shot up and . . . the DRV! bombed Cyprus, while Ankara, following the example of its American partner, likewise lodged a ‘complaint’ against . . . Cyprus! Well., and, of course, the United States, feigning the part of the innocent lamb, complains against Cuba, which presumably threatens the American colossus. But who can possibly be deceived by these clumsy maneuvers of the NATO diplomats?
11