Gorbachev rejects export of revolution

Press, 6 April 1989, Page 10

Gorbachev rejects export of revolution

NZPA-Reuter Havana The Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, urging a political solution to the conflict in Central America, used a Havana forum yesterday to issue a ringing renunciation of export of revolution — and of counter-revolution. In a speech to Cuba’s Parliament, Mr Gorbachev also called for an end to all arms supplies to the region and rejected United States assertions that Latin America was part of its “backyard,” saying Washington still seemed tempted to use

force in the area. “We are resolutely against any form of export of revolution, or of counter-revolution,” he said as President Fidel Castro — accused by the United States of using military aid to promote his brand of communism — listened attentively. The problems of Central America, he said, “can only be solved by political means . . through a Latin American solution on the basis of a balance of interest of all the sides involved, without any interference from the outside.”

His remarks amounted to a clear rejection of calls from the United States President, George Bush, that he call a unilateral halt to Soviet military aid to its allies in the area. Cuba says it provides moral support to Leftwing movements but has stopped sending military aid. On the even of Mr Gorbachev’s arrival, the Cuban deputy Foreign Minister, Raul Roa Kouri, said his country had the right to support revolutionaries “because other Govern-

ments believe they have a right to support counterrevolutionaries,” an apparent reference to American aid for Nicaragua’s Contra rebels. Mr Gorbachev’s speech, his last engagement of a three-day visit to Havana and his first sortie into Latin America, came after he and Dr Castro had signed a friendship treaty hailing their two countries’ “indestructible friendship and solidarity.” Both denounced what they said were suggestions in the West that they had serious policy differences,