Dr Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II are two names to conjure with in the history of this century. Their meeting yesterday in Rome attracted widespread and deserved coverage. It raises the prospect of the Pope visiting Cuba next year, which Dr Castro hopes will help to ease the effects of the US economic blockade of his country.
From their very different vantage points both men command charismatic and moral support from many people around the world; some of the reasons, this should be so were contained in their respective speeches opening and closing the World Food Summit which launched the Rome Declaration and Plan of Action to halve poverty by the year 2015. The Pope opened the proceedings with a condemnation of the growing gap between the rich and the poor in today's world. "We must find solutions together so that no longer do we have the hungry side by side with those living in opulence. . . Such contrasts between poverty and wealth are simply unacceptable for humanity. He went on to say that the argument linking population increase to poverty is invalid, on the assumption that it is possible to produce sufficient food to feed more people.
Dr Castro gave a crackling speech saying that "capitalism, neo-liberalism, the laws of a wild market place, external debt, underdevelopment. . . kill people. Hunger, the inseparable companion of the poor, is the offspring of unequal distribution of wealth and of the injustices in this world. The rich do not know hunger". He condemned the summit for caution and timidity in the face of such forces, saying the objective of halving poverty from 800 million over 20 years is too unambitious. He would find many Catholics to agree with him, among them many radicals who have fallen foul of Pope John Paul over the years in Latin America.
The two men have nonetheless sufficient in common in their overall approach to inspire renewed commitment to the tasks of world development and food security, notably to much greater equality in the distribution of world resources and welfare. The summit outcome was agreed in advance after intensive inter-governmental negotiations. Inevitably, perhaps, it leans decidedly in the direction of technical improvements to accomplish its goals, which may well underestimate the scale of political commitment and change that will be required. Among the measures required will be a much greater degree of democratic accountability and openness by governments and of participation in decisions about food security by the poor themselves, as the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, pointed out in his speech on behalf of the European Union.
This is a point that European governments will be pressing on Dr Castro in coming months as they square up to the US Helms-Burton legislation which applies extra-territorial sanctions against companies dealing with Cuba. Dr Castro hopes a visit by the Pope could be used as a lever, along with EU pressure, to relax the US economic blockade of his state.