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CUBA: RELATIONS WITH MEXICO ON THE MEND AFTER RESIGNATION OF FOREIGN RELATIONS SECRETARY JORGE CASTANEDA.

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After nearly a decade of deterioration, Cuban-Mexican relations have shown marked improvement following the January resignation of Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Jorge Castaneda. Contributing to the warming trend was the failure of the US to respond to Castaneda's efforts to get a migratory accord, US pressure on President Vicente Fox to support the Iraq war, and concerns that Mexican investors could lose position in the Cuban economy.

The decline in bilateral relations dates to the early 1990s when Mexican technocrats fashioned new relations with the US grounded in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Tensions with Cuba reached the crisis level as Castaneda sided openly with US policy. Castaneda seemed to declare diplomatic war on Cuba in April 2002 by ordering Mexico's UN ambassador to vote for a resolution in the UN Commission on Human Rights "inviting" Cuba to make progress in its human rights behavior (see NotiCen, 2002-05-02).

In apparent retaliation for the vote, President Fidel Castro released the transcript of a telephone conversation in which Fox asked Castro to absent himself from a meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002, so President George W. Bush would not have to be in the same room with him.

In September, Castaneda recalled Ambassador Ricardo Pascoe from Havana for failing to adhere fully to orders from Mexico City. Castaneda also lodged criminal charges against him that later proved to be specious (see NotiCen, 2002-09- 26).

Led by the former governing Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI), opposition parties in...

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