US embassy cable - 04SANTODOMINGO2318

C O N F I D E N T I A L SANTO DOMINGO 002318 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR IO/UNP, WHA, WHA/CAR, DRL; GENEVA FOR AMB, PSA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/14/2008 
TAGS: AORC, PHUM, CU, DR 
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN PRESIDENT INSTRUCTS FONMIN TO VOTE FOR 
UNHCR CUBAN RESOLUTION 
 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Hans Hertell.  Reason: 1.5 (b) and (d). 
 
1. (SBU) Dominican President Hipolito Mejia instructed ForMin 
Frank Guerrero Prats at 16:00 today, Wednesday, to tell the 
Dominican delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission to 
vote in favor of the Honduras-sponsored resolution on human 
rights in Cuba. 
 
2.  (C)  The Ambassador had asked for this latest meeting. 
The Presidency had convened the Foreign Minister, and 
Dominican Ambassador to the U.S. Guiliani Curry without 
advising him. Sitting formally at his desk, Mejia was 
emphatic that "serious considerations" had made his decision 
a very difficult one: 
 
- - Cuba's "historical" relationship with the Dominican 
Republic 
- - the fact that some sectors would use the vote for the 
resolution against him in the presidential campaign, now only 
one month from the vote, and 
- - approximately 1500 poor Dominican students are now 
studying in Cuba on scholarships and Mejia expects that many 
or all of them will be sent back home 
 
3.  (C)  Mejia noted that he had discussed the matter 
repeatedly with the Ambassador and had received telephone 
calls from NSC Amb. Otto Reich and Dept Assistant Secretary 
Amb. Roger Noriega.  Foreign Minister Guerrero Pratts and his 
ministry had argued in favor of a Dominican abstention. 
Grimly, Mejia said he expects that opposition figures will 
portray him as "a puppet of the United States."  The 
Ambassador told the President that he had done the right 
thing -- not for the United States but for the hemisphere and 
for the people of the Cuba.  He thanked Mejia for his 
leadership. 
 
4. (C)  Mejia again went over the considerations behind his 
decision, jabbing at a notepad.  "This is hard," he said 
several times.  The Cubans have been calling him and he has 
not yet returned their call.  Mejia mentioned with little 
animation the speech he had made in the morning before a 
civic NGO analyzing corruption (septel) and grimly spoke of 
"demagogy" against him in the political campaign.  "There 
will be serious conflicts."  As they left, Guerrero Pratts 
showed the Ambassador a notepad with two Geneva telephone 
numbers and assured him that he would instruct the delegation. 
 
5. (C) Comment.  The Ambassador has telephoned and met Mejia 
repeatedly over the past month specifically to argue for this 
decision.  On Thursday of Holy Week, for example, when the 
Ambassador called on the President at a government-owned 
beach house, at Mejia's insistence, the meeting turned into 
an extended private luncheon with the Mejia family. Making 
his decision in this formal manner was a signal to the 
Ambassador of the high cost that the President expected to 
pay for doing the right thing. 
HERTELL