Castro A No-Show At Spanish Summit

By CBS News Producer Portia Siegelbaum

The state-controlled media did herald two demands made in Salamanca by the foreign ministers prior to the summit. In one, the ministers urged Castro's long-time foe, the United States, to end its "financial, commercial and economic" embargo against the island. "We reaffirm once more…that unilateral coercive measures which affect the welfare of people and obstruct integration processes are unacceptable," they said.

The Associated Press reports that U.S. embassy officials in Spain expressed concern over the statement by the foreign ministers, saying it could be interpreted as support for the Castro dictatorship.

The statement was described as a "clear and unequivocal sign of support by the Ibero-American community for the struggle of the Cuban people to end the more than four-decade U.S. blockade of the island" by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque who participated in the discussion.

Cuba has submitted a report to the United Nations claiming the embargo has cost the island $82 billion, an average of nearly $1.8 billion a year. The U.N. General Assembly will be voting in early November on a Cuban-sponsored resolution against the embargo, which Havana calls a blockade. The resolution is expected to pass overwhelmingly, as it has every year since it was first presented in 1992.

The foreign ministers also backed Cuban and Venezuelan demands that Washington extradite a Cuban exile, now a Venezuelan citizen -- Luis Posada Carriles, currently being held in an El Paso, Texas detention center. He has been accused of illegally entering the United States from Mexico last March.

Their statement also says they "backed moves to obtain the extradition and to bring to justice the person responsible for the terrorist attack on a Cubana Aviation plane in October 1976." All 73 persons on board died when a bomb exploded shortly after the planes take off from Barbados.

An immigration judge in El Paso announced last week that Posada could not be deported to Venezuela because he might face torture there. Venezuela has dismissed that allegation, insisting it wants to bring him to trial.

As to why Castro is not attending the summit, Perez Roque said the Cuban leader is busy, personally coordinating the country's medical aid to hurricane and earthquake victims in Central American and Pakistan.

Roque dismissed suggestions that Castro was avoiding a confrontation with his opponents. A number of Cuban dissident and human rights groups had announced they would stage demonstrations should he show up.

Last weekend, Cuba sent 200 doctors to Guatemala to help in disaster recovery. They joined the nearly 300 Cuban medical personal permanently based there. According to Cuban officials, Pakistan has also accepted Castro's offer of 200 physicians to help in earthquake relief.

All of these doctors belong to a special emergency relief brigade created by the 79-year-old Castro in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The doctors, equipped with backpacks filled with medicine, backed up Castro's offer to send medical personnel to New Orleans and other U.S. Gulf Coast cities. Washington never responded to that proposal.

International medical aid has long been the Cuban leader's pet project. Five years ago, he responded to the vast destruction Hurricane Mitch inflicted on Central America by sending medical teams and by opening the Latin American Medical School in Havana, which Castro often showcases to foreign visitors. Several thousand poor and mostly indigenous students from the region are currently studying there. Last spring saw the first graduation of some 1,600 new doctors.

Castro hasn't attended this annual summit of leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal since 2000. Four other leaders are staying away this time, including the presidents of Guatemala and El Salvador, who have their hands full dealing with the damage wrought by Hurricane Stan.

By Portia Siegelbaum