GUATEMALA UNLIKELY SOURCE FOR ASSISTANCE ON CUBA

C O N F I D E N T I A L GUATEMALA 001811

SIPDIS

WHA/CCA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/15/2014
TAGS: PREL PHUM CU GT
SUBJECT: GUATEMALA UNLIKELY SOURCE FOR ASSISTANCE ON CUBA
TRANSITION

REF: SECSTATE 152813

Classified By: PolOff Nicole Otallah, Reasons 1.4 (B,D)


1. (C) The Berger Administration is unlikely to push
actively or publicly for democratic reform in Cuba. Its
primary focus is on internal reform and housecleaning. Its
roots are conservative, but it is trying to be seen as
non-ideological, bringing business leaders and human rights
activists such as Rigoberta Menchu together in the government
to address serious domestic challenges. It is avoiding
public positions on world affairs unless it is confident that
Guatemalans across the political spectrum will agree, or at
least not care. Pressuring Cuba in public is still not a
safe subject here with the left. Moreover, Guatemalans rely
on the services of Cuban doctors, for which former President
Portillo awarded the Cuban government the GOG's highest
prize, the Orden del Quetzal. Berger responded deliberately
to Portillo's excess by making the Peace Corps the first
Orden del Quezal recipient of his administration -- a fine
and welcome gesture, but not the same as criticizing the
Cubans or asking them to leave. He has also sought to be
helpful with Cuba (e.g., in the CHR and with the ECOSOC
resolution) when it can be done in the distant confines of
multilateral organizations and together with his Central
American neighbors, but he will not be inclined to speak out
forcefully in public. It's a potentially polarizing subject,
and further polarization is exactly what he is trying to
avoid.


2. (C) Guatemalan NGOs are similarly focused on domestic,
post-conflict agendas. Many spring from the left, and their
roots go back to the conflict and a Cuban-inspired rhetoric
of revolution. They have made excellent progress in adopting
modern democratic thinking and discourse, but the arguments
of class struggle have not gone away. They are unlikely
choices to be promoting democracy in Cuba while still finding
their way at home. Some groups on the right can be counted
upon to demand democratic transition in Cuba as soon as
possible, but -- fairly or not -- they tend to be readily
dismissed by the left as those who were responsible for
genocide. The most serious and least ideological groups are
utterly absorbed with building civil society in Guatemala.
As with the Berger administration, most would support Cuban
democratization, all else equal, but it would represent an
unwelcome and potentially polarizing distraction from their
primary tasks to do so publicly.


WHARTON