More on Fidel's Provocations

Here's the editorial from El Universal:

Fidel Castro accused Mexico of not informing about the flu outbreak early enough. There is information that supports that version, but we should the Cuban commandant that he has no moral authority to allege such a thing; it was his government that in 1997 hid an epidemic of hemorrhagic dengue that it was later forced to admit. It's therefore better to trust in the World Health Organization and other less hypocritical countries have to say about the issue.

Castro has used only suppositions to support his statements, whereas the European and Latin American foreign secretaries that will participate in the 15th ministerial conference between the EU and the Río Group plan on thanking Mexico for its response to the crisis. The Mexican authorities have acted with speed, with effectiveness to this new flu epidemic," the European commissioner for foreign relations, Benita Ferraro-Waldner, said yesterday. The US, Spain, and the WHO has made the same declaration.

[Break]

In any case, with the info we have available, we lack the substance of the diagnoses from those state that Mexico responded late. That's why the international authorities have already given a public verdict. We'll see if later investigations, medical or journalistic, can establish another conclusion.

Meanwhile, we have to assume that Fidel Castro's criteria were political, not scientific. The question would then be: why promote a conflict with Mexico in which Cuba lacks congruency and support from other countries? We'll have to clarify that issue before falling into the temptation of responding to the island in the same tone.

Sage advice. For its part, the Mexican public isn't demanding such circumspection: almost 60 percent of those responding to an Imagen poll said that Mexico should break off relations with Cuba.