[Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commemorating
Grito de Dolores, invited Cuba’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel, to
share the podium with him as an act of solidarity.]
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CUBAN AND MEXICAN PRESIDENTS STRENGTHEN SOLIDARITY IN REMARKABLE
DISPLAY  
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W.T. Whitney
September 23, 2021
CounterPunch
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_ Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commemorating
Grito de Dolores, invited Cuba’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel, to
share the podium with him as an act of solidarity. _

Cuba's Miguel Diaz-Canel, center, accompanies Mexico President Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador, during Independence Day celebrations in the
Zocalo in Mexico City, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021,

 

The independence of Mexico and of Cuba, got a big hearing in Mexico
City on September 16.  On that day in 1810, in Dolores, Mexico,
Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo called upon parishioners to join him in
rebelling against Spain’s viceregal government. Mexico finally
gained independence in 1821. Every year, at 11 PM on September 15, and
on September 16, Mexicans and their presidents pay homage to
Hidalgo’s iconic Cry of Dolores (_Grito de Dolores_).

This year, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commemorating that
important day, had a surprising guest. Cuba’s president Miguel
Díaz-Canel was at his side and they both spoke. Shared goals and
strong friendship were evident. The extraordinary encounter may
portend new substance and heightened commitment for efforts to free
Cuba, at long last, from aggressive U.S. interference with Cuba’s
sovereignty.

The Cuban president later joined president López Obrador in reviewing
Mexican armed forces assembled in the Zocalo, Mexico City’s central
plaza. No visiting foreign president had ever done so.

Excerpts of their remarks appear below. What they actually said may
more readily communicate concepts, reasoning, convictions, and deep
feelings than would have been the case with summarization. The object
here is to enhance appreciation of the nature and strength of the two
nations’ friendship now and into the future.

To begin: President López Obrador observes that “[Hidalgo] who
initiated independence matters more to Mexicans than Iturbide, who
consummated it. The priest defended the common people while the
royalist general represented the higher-ups … [But] his adversaries
never forgave [Hidalgo’s] audacity in wanting to make poor people
the equals of the most favored classes.”

“We Mexicans.” he adds, “feel pride in this hero and others,
because here, like nowhere else, the independence movement did not
begin by simply reaccommodating with the power elite, or act solely
through nationalist feelings, but it was the fruit of a craving for
justice and freedom. Indeed, the call for liberty and justice preceded
the call for political independence.”

López Obrador turns to Cuba:

“Today we remember that heroic deed [of Hidalgo] and we celebrate it
with the participation of the President of Cuba. He represents a
people who resolved, like few others in the world, to defend with
dignity their right to live free and Independent, without allowing the
interference of any foreign power in their internal affairs. I have
already said and I repeat: we may or may not agree with the Cuban
Revolution and Cuba’s government, but to have resisted 62 years
without surrender is a historical feat, undoubtedly.

“I believe, therefore, that through their struggle in defense of
their country’s sovereignty, the people of Cuba deserve a prize for
dignity. That island has to be considered as the new Numantia for its
example of resistance. And I think for the same reason that the
country has to be declared a patrimony of humanity. Now I only add
that the government I represent respectfully calls upon the government
of the United States to raise its blockade against Cuba, because no
state has a right to subjugate another people, or another country. …
”

_(__Numantia_
[[link removed]]_ was a hill
fortress in northern Spain contested by Roman soldiers and the native
Spaniards between 154 B.C. and 133 B.C. The latter did not surrender.
Finally, Roman general Scipio Aemilianus and 60,000 soldiers
surrounded the fortress with entrenchments. After 15 months, all
6000-8000 Iberian soldiers inside were dead of starvation.)__ _

The Mexican president continues: “I say with complete frankness: It
looks very bad that the U.S. government uses the blockade to hurt the
people of Cuba with the purpose of having them be forced by necessity
to confront their own government. If this perverse strategy achieves
success – something that doesn’t appear likely given the dignity
we referred to – it would be a Pyrrhic victory, a vile and
scoundrelly one. A stain like that is not washed away by all the water
of the seas.

“Let President Biden, who possess much political sensitivity, take a
wider view and put an end, for always, to the politics of grievances
against Cuba. In the search for reconciliation, he must also help the
U.S. Cuban community and put aside electoral and partisan issues
…It’s a time of brotherhood and not of confrontation. As Jose
Martí pointed out: “to avoid shock, we rely upon exquisite
political tact that derives from the majesty of disinterest and the
rule of love_.”_

President Miguel Díaz-Canel speaks:

“Among all the brothers Our America gave to us, Mexico counts for
Cuba as one of the dearest ones, for many reasons. The affection that
unites our lands begins with amazement at its diverse and deep traces
in the literature and history of America.” Diaz Canel cites Cuban
authors José María Heredia and particularly José Martí. He reads
Martí’s portrayal of Hidalgo.

Díaz-Canel remarks that, “Through its characteristics, the
independence process in Mexico … showed a remarkable component of
social demands, on behalf of indigenous peoples especially. It
differed in that way from other processes typical of the era of
independence struggles. Without question, its impact on the freedom
and anti-colonialist struggles of our region, particularly in Cuba,
was extraordinary.”

He points out that Mexicans joined Cuba’s first War for Independence
from Spain (1868-1878) that Mexico extended recognition to that
leader’s insurgent government.  He mentions Cubans fighting with
Mexicans in their wars against Texan Anglos and U.S. invaders in
1846-1848. Díaz-Canel refers to Martí, who “joined our two nations
eternally in all his work, but especially in letters to his great
Mexican friend Manuel Mercado.”

On the eve of Cuba’s Second War for Independence (1895-1898), Martí
communicated to Mercado his idea of “Using the independence of Cuba
to stop the United States in time from extending throughout the
Antilles and falling with even more force upon our American lands.”

Díaz-Canel mentions the murder in Mexico City by Cuba’s Machado
dictatorship of the young Cuban Communist leader Julio Antonio Mella
in 1929. He praises Mexicans’ assistance to preparations there for
the Granma expedition led by Fidel Castro in 1956. And, recalls the
Cuban president, “faithful to its best traditions, Mexico was the
only country in Latin America that did not break relations with Cuba
when we were expelled by the OAS by imperial mandate.”

Díaz-Canel emphasizes that, “Mexico’s solidarity with Cuba has
awakened in our people a greater admiration and the deepest gratitude
… the decision to invite us has an immeasurably greater value, at a
time when we are suffering the onslaught of a multidimensional war,
with a criminal blockade, opportunistically intensified.” Because we
are “under fire in a total war …Cuba will always remember your
expressions of support, your permanent demand for the lifting of the
blockade and for the annual United Nations vote to be converted into
concrete deeds.”.

The Mexican-Cuban alliance has value for Cuba.  Mexico’s government
has a U.S. ear, if only because disruption of amicable U.S.-Mexican
relations might significantly destabilize aspects of life in the
United States. Additionally, Mexico does provide material aid to Cuba
and has the potential for promoting support for Cuba throughout her
Latin America.

An analyst writing for
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offers perspective: “Mexico, during López Obrador’s presidency,
has begun a process of winning back its regional influence… The U.S.
– Cuba conflict is another relevant factor in Mexico’s position
… [Already] documented is the mutual love between the Mexican and
Cuban peoples … [Therefore,] the building of a new relation of the
region with and Washington cannot exclude Havana, and on that López
Obrador has been strong.”

Cuba’s friendship with Mexico hardly matches the importance of its
alliance with the Soviet Bloc. Material aid from that source helped
assure the revolutionary government’s survival. Soviet military
might and worldwide influence discouraged U.S. excesses in regard to
Cuba. But activated friendship with Mexico now may add tangible
benefits for Cuba’s cause that are lacking with other solidarity
efforts, for example: pro-Cuba votes in the United Nations,
hit-and-miss material aid, various solidarity statements, and
assistance from NGO’s.

Meanwhile reality intrudes. In front of Cuba’s Mexico City Embassy
on September 16, a few anti-government activists, having arrived from
Cuba, tussled
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Cubans living in Mexico who support their government. The Mexican
media carried critiques of Díaz-Canel’s presence in Mexico that
López Obrador’s own political opposition had generated.

More significantly, the entire region on September 18 missed a fragile
opportunity of gaining some independence from U.S. domination. The
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a regional
organization to which the United States and Canada do not belong, was
holding a summit meeting in Mexico City that day, The CELAC group
refused to consider a proposal
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forth by President López Obrador and others that member states
abandon the Organization of American States (OAS) or alter its
functioning. The U.S. government is accused of using OAS as a tool for
controlling the region.

_W.T. WHITNEY JR. is a retired pediatrician and political journalist
living in Maine._

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