The Mexican Embassy affair

Our position is:

    One of respect toward Mexican President Vicente Fox and Chancellor Jorge Castañeda. It is of under standing of the complexity of the Cuban topic in Mexico and of the pressures being exerted from multiple directions upon them, aimed at preventing a rapprochement with the entire Cuban people, that is, with all sectors of our society.

    Fox's and Castañeda's meeting with us [on Feb. 28 in Havana) made a good impression on Cubans. It opened a new stage in people-to-people relations between Mexico and Cuba.

    We shall not take, and are not taking, any steps to make the Mexican government vote one way or another in Geneva. Our position is defined in the document of March 4, All United. We believe that pressures also exist here and that they [the Mexicans] possess enough elements to assume a stance based on an ethical point of view.

    We do not believe the version handed out concerning the events at the embassy. Neither the exile community nor the internal dissidence provoked or manipulated the people who went in. In any case, we believe that playing along with this charade will lead to a confrontation with the Mexican government and the Mexican community in the United States. It would mean falling into a trap and playing into the hands of those who wish to hinder the good course of relations between Mexico and the Cuban people.

    After these moments of heightened emotion and tension, we must resume with greater intensity the dialogue and relations with the Mexican government and with those political and social sectors that desire [dialogue], as well as with all the people.

    It is up to the Mexican government to freely decide if it will demand or carry out an investigation of these events.