HAVANA (AP) -- Calling for individual liberty and respect for national sovereignty, leaders of Spain, Portugal and Latin American nations began heading home after a summit that brought political gains to both President Fidel Castro and his domestic critics.
Castro won the international prestige of hosting a major summit, a denunciation of U.S. laws affecting property in Cuba and calls for social justice in the closing declaration late Tuesday.But as summit host, he also presided over visitors strongly linking democracy with individual freedoms, and many visitors met with often-jailed dissidents whom Castro has referred to as tools of the United States.
"There cannot be sovereign nations without free men and women," Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo told the closing session, "men and women who can fully exercise their essential freedoms: freedom to think and give opinions, freedom to act and participate, freedom to dissent, freedom to choose."
Earlier, Spain's King Juan Carlos and Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio also spoke out on the commitment to individual freedoms by Ibero-American nations.