Jorge Castañeda, a well-respected political analyst, denies accusations
that he worked on behalf of the Cuban government.
Story by : MEGAN SMITH
Spy stories don't get much better than this: a respected Mexican
political analyst, a darling of the U.S. media, is accused of peddling
influence for the Cubans. But it's been difficult for Mexican newspaper
El Universal to convince the public that its exclusive spy story isn't
just fiction.
The Mexico City daily claims to have evidence that Jorge Castañeda
Gutman shaped Mexico's foreign policy at the behest of the Cuban government.
Castañeda, a politician and academic who regularly contributes op-ed
pieces to the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek, categorically denied the
charge in an interview with the Times last Wednesday.
On February 4, El Universal published information, apparently obtained
from a 215-page file housed in the national archives, detailing
Castañeda's alleged espionage for the Cubans between 1979 and 1984 and
signed by Miguel Nazar Haro, director of Mexico's now-defunct Federal
Security Directorate (DFS).
The story, entitled "From traitor to chancellor," summarizes Castañeda's
alleged collaboration with Cuba's General Intelligence Directorate and
the "altering, demanding, and degrading" influence he had on his father,
Jorge Castañeda y Alvarez de la Rosa, during his service as foreign
minister for President Jose Lopez Portillo between 1979 and 1982.
Castañeda, a former communist who broke with the party in the early
1980s, acknowledged he worked closely with his father as an advisor on
Mexico's Latin American foreign policy.
But, he told the Times, representatives of the Cuban government never
recruited him, nor would he have entertained the idea of working as
their operative.
Castañeda himself served as secretary of foreign affairs between 2000
and 2003 under President Vicente Fox, and was partly responsible for the
deterioration of Cuban-Mexican diplomatic relations after he criticized
Cuba's human rights record.
El Universal did not contact Castañeda for comment on their story and
Castañeda said the piece was one-sided and irresponsible.
The newspaper has not run a follow-up to its initial expose and declined
to comment on it or their source material. No other major Mexican news
agencies have picked up the story.
Though Castañeda did not refute the existence of a DFS file – the agency
kept files on activities of many left-wing leaders – he said the
contents were invented by a disreputable, corrupt organization.
Former DFS director Nazar Haro is currently under house arrest in
Monterrey for his involvement in the disappearance and presumed death of
an urban guerilla organizer in 1971.
"This is a report by one of the most nefarious individuals in recent
Mexican history," Castañeda commented to the Times.
The DFS helped direct the Mexican government's so-called "dirty war"
against guerrilla movements and left-wing student organizations in the
1970s and 80s.
Widespread accusations of human rights crimes and collusion with
drug-traffickers brought the agency down in 1985 and the DFS was
absorbed into the Center for Investigation and National Security.
A representative of Mexico's National Archives said the file El
Universal obtained for its story has been public record since 2003.
Castañeda has written extensively about left-wing movements in Latin
American and taught the subject at Cambridge, Princeton and UC Berkley.
He is currently a professor of politics and Latin American studies at
New York University.
No comments:
Post a Comment