Bill,
The Cuba/Mexico story is a lot more complex and a lot more interesting than the news report suggests.
It all started with a Mexican businessman paying off the Mexico City mayor's office in connection with contracting work that was not performed. The businessman nonetheless got paid $3 m. There are also drug dealing and money laundering allegations against the businessman.
The Mexico City Mayor is a member of a left-wing party, and is the leading contender in the upcoming '06 Presidential elections. The corruption in his office has hurt his political standing severely. He may not recover from the blow.
Carlos Ahumada, the crooked businessman, claimed that the bribes were extorted from him by the Mayor's office, and produced videotapes he took of the money changing hands as proof. He then skedaddled to Cuba, where Castro's folks "interrogated" him, presumably as a favor to the leftist Mexico City mayor. Castro developed proof that the Mayor, his political buddy, was blameless, but how much credibility should be given to proof developed during a Cuban "interrogation" is an open question. There are lots of things I wouldn't want to go through, an interrogation at the hands of Castro's intelligence services is one of them.
Castro then extradited Ahumada to Mexico, where he is jailed pending investigation and charges. Incredibly, Castro sent the material gathered during Ahumada's "interrogation" to the leftist Mayor instead of to the Mexican Federal Government, as protocol required.
This, along with a human rights abuses and interference in internal Mexican politics, was the last straw for Mexican President Fox. Ambassadors were recalled, diplos declared p.n.g., etc.
But that's not the full story.
The whole souring of the relationship between Mexico and Cuba started when Castro got tape recordings in which Fox connives to have Castro not invited to a conference of Latin American heads of state in Monterrey, Mexico, a bastion of Mexican conservatism. Why? Because W was attending, and Fox didn't want Bush to be inconvenienced by Castro's presence at the conference. Castro was royally pissed and has been a pebble in Fox's shoe ever since even though Mexico has had a cozy relationship with Castro for decades so as to be able to tweak the US's nose when necessary.
Ever watch Mexican soap operas? They're wild, but no wilder than Mexican politics. |
