Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will walk a diplomatic tightrope when he sees his old friend Fidel Castro this week.
He will be trying not to antagonize Washington while pushing for Cuba to be more integrated into the region. Arriving in Havana for a two-day visit tomorrow, Silva is to meet both days with the 77-year-old communist leader he has known for decades.
A major focus during the trip will be Silva's concern that Cuba, under increasing international criticism because of alleged human rights worries, does not "remain isolated from the concert of nations," Tilden Santiago, Brazil's ambassador to Havana, told reporters this week.
In the nine months since he has taken office, Silva has sought to become a regional leader, making regional integration the centerpiece of his foreign policy, visiting nearly all South American nations or meeting with their presidents in Brasilia.
"If integration is to be achieved, Cuba cannot be left out," said Mario Marconini, executive director of the Brazilian Center for International Studies in Rio de Janeiro.
But Silva will also be testing his country's delicate relationship with the US, which has had no diplomatic relations with Cuba for more than four decades. The US is a major trading partner with Brazil, both the largest exporter to Brazil and the largest recipient of Brazilian products.
"If the visit turns out to be nothing more than a gesture to please leftist forces in Brazil and in the rest of world, it will be an empty and meaningless gesture," Marconini said in a telephone interview.
"But if it becomes part of a broader approach to the Hemisphere it could turn into a constructive exercise that should please even the United States," Marconini said.
Cuban dissidents and their supporters have asked Silva to intervene on behalf of 75 activists sentenced to long prison terms after a crackdown this year.
"Brazil should defend an opening in Cuba and a dialogue between the government and the opposition," Cuban democracy activist Oswaldo Paya said in an interview published on Sunday in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
Silva "should demand the release of the country's political prisoners," Paya was quoted as saying.
The Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders has asked the Brazilian president to press for the release of the 26 independent journalists among the 75 dissidents sentenced to long prison terms in March.
While recognizing Silva's political affinities with Castro, the press group wrote this week that "no democrat of the left or right would understand if these affinities were to take precedence over respect for human rights."
Brazilian diplomats have said those requests are being studied, but the president has no plans to meet with dissidents.
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