MEMORIAS OLVIDADAS: CHAPTER 9

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Chapter Nine Clinton's secret meeting with Cuba

In the final months of my administration, I invited a group of

businessmen from all over the world to an event in Cartagena de Indias, where I thanked them for extending their trust to my country by investing in it so generously. I spoke to a second group, inviting them to follow the example of those at the earlier meeting by making the most of Colombia’s promise. Colombia’s security and confidence was founded on the integrity of our institutions and the strengthening of our military and police forces. I had managed to consolidate these achievements with an effort that was unprecedented.

At that event, my purpose was also to emphasize that the end of

the peace process with the FARC would not thwart the existence of the conditions Colombia needed to continue its surge of economic growth.

Today, we are still among the fastest-growing countries in Latin America.

The central figure at the event in Cartagena was the prestigious ex-

president of the United States, Bill Clinton, a confirmed friend and admirer of my country ever since we started to work together on implementing Plan Colombia. He has always been captivated by the work of Gabriel García Márquez, whom he has described as ‘my favourite writer’. The authentically Colombian magic realism in every work by ‘Gabo’, as well as his globally acclaimed and unsurpassable talent, have defined the former head of state's lively interest in and friendship with Colombia.

Bill Clinton arrived at the event with Queen Noor of Jordan and

Luis Alberto Moreno (the Ambassador of Colombia in Washington at the time), on a private aeroplane owned by the Pritzker family. The family,

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owners of the Hayatt hotel chain, is one of the wealthiest in the United States.

One of the first to arrive was the Mexican magnate Carlos Slim,

who attended every function that had been planned, most of them in the Cartagena de Indias Convention Center.

The businessmen’s meeting coincided with another event taking

place in the Cartagena Hotel Santa Clara, where Camilo Gómez, High Commissioner for Peace, was with a Cuban delegation, acting as intermediary in discussions with the guerrilla forces of the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional), seeking that they put down their arms and re-enter civilian life. The illegal armed group was keeping the option of demobilising open, in spite of the completion of negotiations. This Cuban goodwill group was headed by the Foreign Secretary himself, Felipe Pérez Roque, a young politician from the inner circle of Fidel Castro. He occupied the post between 1999 and 2009, and maintained close ties of friendship and co-operation with Colombia.

When he arrived in Cartagena, Pérez Roque approached me to say

hello, and then he proceeded to make an unusual request.

‘President, I want to ask you a special favour’, he said with a

certain solemnity.

‘I would be glad to help, Felipe’, I responded.

‘President, could you arrange a private appointment here, in

Cartagena, with President Clinton? It’s a special request from Commander Fidel’, he said.

‘I don´t know, Felipe, but I could find out if that possibility exists’.

‘It would have to be a meeting that no one would find out about’,

he said.

‘I´ll find out, Felipe’.

From the outset, I assumed that Clinton meeting the Cuban

minister would be impossible. Even if at that moment he was no longer President of the United States, and that gave him greater personal freedom to act as he chose, his enormous national and international

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prestige could easily be seen as compromised. The main victim, perhaps, could even be his wife, Hillary, who at that time was starting her new post as senator for New York State, which she held from 2001 to 2009.

Nevertheless, one possibility was that Clinton would be interested in speaking to one of the most hostile and bitter opponents of the United States so that any doubts he had could be addressed, and to find out why he wanted to talk to him.

The United States and Cuba have no diplomatic relations, and

Washington has an embargo according to which any commercial trade between American people or companies and the Castro regime is illegal.

The only bilateral relationship is that which runs its course in offices of both their interests, that are added on to the structures of Swiss embassies in Washington and Havana. When Cuba belonged to Spain, Washington was intent on buying the island, and since Cuban independence, starting in 2002, the United States has occupied the island of Bahía de Guantánamo, a part of the province of the same name.

As soon as Pérez Roque asked me the question, I asked Luis

Alberto for his opinion.

‘The Cuban Foreign Secretary tells me that he’d like to have a

meeting with Clinton, what do you think?’

‘Ask him and see what he says. Maybe he’ll be interested’, said

Luis Alberto.

I spoke to President Clinton as soon as I saw him, and notified him

of the Cuban request. He wasn’t surprised, and I saw no sign of doubt.

‘Well, it must be a private meeting’, he said with his usual

kindness.

‘Alright, I´ll arrange for you to meet up in private, in the Guest

House’.

I immediately sent Clinton’s answer to Luis Alberto Moreno, and I

asked him to get ready whatever was necessary so that they could see each other in the greatest privacy possible.

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There was no difficulty in making the historic meeting materialise,

which was, up until now, a secret, except that Clinton did not speak Spanish, and Pérez Roque did not speak English, either. But this stumbling block was overcome by Luis Alberto himself, who offered to act as a translator.

It was a Saturday. Clinton was dressed in a light-coloured shirt,

and Pérez Roque in a guayabera. The meeting was markedly friendly, and the ex-president was truly pleased to be able to speak to the Cuban.

Clinton knew a lot about Cuba and its history, and the subject that

most worried Pérez Roque, and, consequently, Fidel Castro, came as no surprise to him: the embargo.

The minister for foreign affairs suggested, even, that Clinton could

act as a kind of informal goodwill ambassador between Cuba and the United States government, to find solutions to the profound and old differences between the two countries.

Pérez Roque also invited Clinton to visit the island, and the ex-

president answered enthusiastically that he would be willing to go, to be able to have a meeting with Fidel and García Márquez. He never lets a chance to express his admiration for García Márquez go by.

Clinton made extensive reference to the embargo, and revealed that

at the beginning of his first government, he had wanted to find a way to lift it. He spoke to leaders in exile, listening to their determined and emphatic reasoning for keeping the island isolated. In spite of this opposition, he always wanted to initiate a process towards the goal of some day restoring bilateral relations. Yet everything was ruined, he said, and just when his project appeared to be progressing, in 1996 the Cuban air force shot down two civilian aircraft flown by Brothers to the Rescue (Hermanos al Rescate), the anti-Castro exile group. Four of the occupants were killed. This act revived national condemnation of the communist regime, and buried any real hopes of mitigating the United States’ stance towards Cuba.

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Clinton’s attempts to resolve difficulties in the relationship with

Cuba led him to open a channel of communication with Fidel’s regime, and he even sent a couple of discreet representatives. But it was only on that one occasion in Cartagena that he had personal contact with the island’s regime.

In that secret meeting between Clinton and the Cuban foreign

secretary, they did not reach any kind of agreement. What they did achieve at that meeting was to identify, at first hand, the mutual criteria and interests that have always existed.

The meeting took place in a room in the guest house where Clinton

was staying, and at that precise moment it was almost completely empty of other people, so that a possible leak could be avoided.

When they finished, the ex-president and the foreign secretary took

their leave of each other very cordially, and both of them left in different speedboats towards the city's conference centre. None of the journalists there ever heard anything about what had just taken place, and it could have turned into the most significant international breaking news to emerge from the meetings already scheduled in the city.

Clinton was the crowd-puller at the businessmen’s gathering, and they were all anxious to talk to him. He generously used his influence to invite them to invest in Colombia, with the sure knowledge that the country's future will provide one of the safest and most promising opportunities in the world. As with the other speakers before him, a friendship bracelet with the colours of the Colombian flag was tied around his wrist, and he did not just wear it throughout his whole stay.

He is still wearing it to this day as a sign of admiration and affection.

Clinton played the saxophone at a gala dinner I hosted at the Castillo de San Felipe de Bajaras. Later, at a private gathering, we were joined by Luis Alberto Moreno and by the president-elect, Alvaro Uribe.

Clinton greeted the latter and then advised him to follow the principle of two-party friendship in his relationship with the United States, which

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had been the key for making Plan Colombia a success during my government.

Years later, the Cubans again contacted Luis Alberto to ask for an audience with Clinton in New York, at which he acted as their translator for a second time.