Arias calls out Cuba
Development: On 10 March the outgoing president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, called on the Cuban government to release its political prisoners and highlighted the case of the journalist Guillermo Fariñas, who has been on hunger strike since 24 February in protest at the death (on 23 February) from an 85-day hunger strike of an imprisoned dissident, Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
Significance: Never one to mince his words, Arias is only the second regional politician to condemn Cuba in the wake of Zapata Tamayo's death. Chile's incoming president, Sebastián Piñera (who takes office today), was the other. Arias's comments are in stark contrast to those of Brazil's President Lula da Silva, who has become mired in controversy at home over his refusal to get involved in the Cuban case and his comments earlier this week implying that Cuba's political prisoners are mere common criminals.
After the weekly government council meeting yesterday, Arias, a previous winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, lamented Zapata Tamayo's death and rounded heavily on the Cuban government, declaring, “Cuba can try and sell us the idea that it's a special democracy, but every political prisoner denies that affirmation. Political prisoners do not exist in democracies... Cuba trumpets its solidarity, but in practice applies that solidarity only to its sympathizers", he added.
He called on Cuba to release its political prisoners, suggesting it would then have more authority to “ask for the respect of others towards its form of doing things".
Costa Rica re-established diplomatic ties with Cuba a year ago (March 2009).