US embassy cable - 04GUATEMALA1811

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