Q COSTARICA — Legislator Rocío Alfaro, head of the Frente Amplio (FA) legislative faction, called President Rodrigo Chaves a “lapdog” for announcing at Wednesday’s press conference that Costa Rica will sever diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Without directly mentioning President Rodrigo Chaves or his US counterpart, Donald Trump, Alfaro criticized what she described as a form of subordination that, from her perspective, mediated the closure of the Costa Rican embassy in Cuba and the request for a partial withdrawal of Cuba’s personnel from Costa Rica.
“Today, a man who fancied himself a jaguar was reduced to a lapdog, from president to international ridicule. He had already demonstrated this with his foolish and groveling attitude of offering our sovereignty in a military alliance, which, given that we don’t have an army, means he has offered the occupation of our territory by foreign forces. Something worthy of a medal of dishonor, a medal of treason, which could be called, I don’t know, the William Walker Medal.
“Today, the king of pedophiles and racists has ordered this government to break diplomatic relations with Cuba because the disrespect for human rights in Cuba has increased. One thing must be very clear: the main violator of human rights in Cuba is the United States,” the congresswoman stated during the political oversight session of the Legislative Assembly.
Alfaro questioned the Chaves government’s actions on this issue, given that “the main violator of human rights in Cuba is the United States,” referring to the maintenance of a trade embargo to pressure the Havana regime, “in order to sell the idea that Cuba has a failed model,” she said.
Alfaro recalled that the United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly condemned the US embargo against Cuba, yet this has had no effect.
“Cuba is subjected to the largest and longest-running criminal blockade in history by the United States, in order to sell the world the idea that Cuba has a failed model, after preventing it from achieving the sovereign development to which every nation is entitled.
“This is how they have now intensified measures to try to provoke a genocide, which this government gleefully supports. What bothers them about Cuba is the dignity of its people. We, on the other hand, have a lapdog in Zapote (Casa Presidencial),” the legislator pointed out.
Chávez has specifically attacked the communist model implemented in Cuba and called for its failure to be acknowledged. The president also advocated for “cleansing the hemisphere” of leaders who subscribe to that ideology.
The severing of diplomatic relations comes at a time when the United States—with which the current administration is a close ally—is pressuring the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel to allow free-market reforms.