Will Castro come to Suva signing?

An international meeting in

Fiji could turn into a battleground if Cuban leader Fidel Castro turns up to personally sign into a partnership deal with the European Union, over the objections of Washington.

Diplomatic source say the meeting could re-open last year’s banana war between the United States and the EU and threaten trading arrangements between the EU and developing nations.

There is deep concern in some American circles that Castro could be planning to be in Suva on June 8 to sign onto what is currently being called the “Suva Convention”.

“The Americans are very sensitive about Castro turning up in Fiji and having a platform at the conference with the world media,” a diplomatic source said. The Suva Convention replaces the 25-year-old Lome Convention, signed in Togo, which established a formal tie between the EU and its members’ former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP).

Under Lome 71 countries received aid and, in some instances, price supports and preferences for exports which now breach World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

Lome protocols

also gave preference to a range of exports including sugar from Fiji and Mauritius and bananas from central America. Until now Cuba has not been a member of the ACP group.

But EU Fiji ambassador David Macßae told AFP that Cuba and three Pacific countries - Cook Islands, Nauru and Niue - are seeking entry.

He said he had not been briefed on

any likely dispute

over Cuba and would not comment on it. The ACP countries are to first hold a two

today meeting in

Nadi as well as a special function to mark the 25th anniversary of the group. On June 7 ministers from the EU and ACP would meet and while the outline of the Suva partnership

agreement has been agreed, some details have to be settled before signing the next day in the Fijian capital. The new agreement, which will define the EU’s relation-ship with developing nations, will exclude many of the instruments contained in Lome that included price supports for exports.

The annexes that were in Lome for

Continued next page

ACP leaders will be converging on Suva, Fiji for Hie signing of the successor agreement to the Lome IV convention next month

Continued from previous page sugar and bananas, among others, would also be rolled over but would not be a formal part of the agreement.

The annexes currently have WTO exemption as they involve least developed and developing nations.

Diplomatic sources said Cuba wants to

accede to the agreement while the United States, which has had a trade and diplomatic quarantine on Havana since 1962, is anxious to prevent it occurring.

It is understood that Washington has threatened to take the EU’s deal over annexes before the WTO in a bid to axe the exemptions. Sources say that among

the EU members too there is opposition to Cuba’s signing of the agreement.

It is not clear yet however whether any of the new applicant nations will be able to sign on and there are doubts over whether existing members such as Somalia will be in any position to accede to the new agreement. ■