Sergio Dorantes / For The Times
"It's entirely made up," ex-official Jorge Castañeda said of the report
on espionage activities.
Jorge Castaneda says a newspaper's report that he once served as an
agent of Havana is "entirely made up."
By Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 6, 2008
MEXICO CITY -- Former Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda on
Tuesday denied a newspaper's allegations that he had served as a Cuban
spy for at least three years beginning in the late 1970s.
The allegations appeared Monday in a front-page story in the Mexico City
daily El Universal headlined "From Traitor of the Fatherland to Chancellor."
"Obviously, the story is categorically false," Castaneda said in a
telephone interview. "It's entirely made up."
The story cited documents that the newspaper said were obtained from a
file belonging to Mexico's now-defunct Federal Security Directorate
(known by its Spanish-language initials, DFS) in Mexico's national
archive. Those documents indicate that Castaneda, a former communist,
was recruited by Cuban intelligence in 1979, the paper reported.
For the next several years, according to El Universal, Castaneda
pressured his father, Jorge Castaneda y Alvarez de la Rosa, then
Mexico's foreign secretary, to enact policies favorable to Cuba. He also
relayed information to Cuban officials about "activities, meetings,
events, decisions" and conversations that his father had with other
ministers, the story said.
Castaneda's father served under Jose Lopez Portillo, Mexico's president
from 1976 to 1982.
Castaneda, a political scientist who has written opinion pieces for The
Times, acknowledged that during those years he had "worked closely" with
his father as an advisor on issues related to Central America and the
Caribbean.
But he denied that Cuba ever tried to recruit him as an operative, let
alone succeeded. "They never even tried to do it, because they knew they
would've gotten nowhere," he said.
Castaneda, who was foreign secretary from 2000 to 2003 under President
Vicente Fox, said that El Universal did not contact him for comment
about the allegations in its article before publication.
The newspaper refused an interview request from The Times.
In its story, El Universal said that Castaneda's alleged spying was
documented by reports prepared by the DFS and signed by its
then-director Miguel Nazar Haro. The DFS was reconstituted and renamed
the Center for Investigation and National Security in 1985, amid
accusations of being linked to drug-trafficking and other criminal
activities connected with the government-sponsored political repressions
during Mexico's so-called dirty war of the 1970s and '80s.
Nazar Haro is under house arrest in Monterrey, accused of being involved
in the disappearance of Jesus Piedra Ibarra, a former medical student
who joined a leftist urban guerrilla organization after becoming
outraged over a paramilitary massacre of scores of student protesters in
June 1971. Ibarra disappeared shortly after being arrested in April 1975.
"This is a report by one of the most nefarious individuals in recent
Mexican history," Castaneda said, referring to Nazar Haro.
Castaneda broke with his communist past in the early 1980s, when he
denounced Cuba's leadership. Years later, while serving under Fox,
Castaneda was at the center of a diplomatic falling-out between Mexico
and Cuba, triggered in part by the Fox administration's close economic
and political ties with the United States and its public criticism of
the Castro government's human rights record.
Miguel Angel Quemain, a spokesman for the Mexican archive, said the
documents cited by El Universal have been on hand since 2003. Before
that they were classified as "reserved" and belonged to the Center for
Investigation and National Security, he said.
Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a professor at the Autonomous Technological
Institute of Mexico, who described himself as a friend of Castaneda
despite having had many disagreements with him over the years, denounced
the El Universal story.
"It seems to me that we can say it's very irresponsible of Universal to
publish an article like this without heads or tails," he said.
reed.johnson@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexspy6feb06,1,5603159.story
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