"Non Piu di Fiori": On the Death of Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, a Historical Figure of the Cuban Revolution

 

 

Non piu di fiori; Vaghe catene
Discenda Imene; Ad intrecciar.

Stretta fra barbare; Aspre ritorte; Veggo la morte
Ver me avanzar.

No more shall Hymen descend
to weave fair garlands of flowers.

Bound in harsh, cruel chains, I see death
advance towards me. 

(WA Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito K. 621 (6.9.1791 Prague; Act II.21 Aria Vitellia)

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada is dead. 

Much can be said.  This will do:

The former diplomat was one of the architects of the first migratory dialogue between Washington and Havana in 1978, the year in which negotiations also began with a group of representatives of the Cuban community in the United States.

Alarcón played a key role in negotiating an immigration agreement with the United States that put an end to a massive exodus of Cubans by sea in 1994. He was also central in arranging the return of young castaway Elián González from relatives in Miami to his father in Cuba in 2000. The cigar-puffing and rum-sipping Alarcón, invariably clad in a white guayabera, at one point became the third most powerful man in the country’s Communist Party elite after Fidel and Raul Castro. He was foreign minister between 1992 and 1993 and then served as president of the National Assembly for 20 years until he was removed from the post and the ruling political leadership. No reason was given for Alarcón’s fall from grace, however his closest aid, Miguel Alvarez, had been arrested the previous year for being a U.S. spy and it is standard procedure in such cases to consider all contacts compromised. Alarcón remained a loyal member of the Revolution despite his political downfall. (Ricardo Alarcón, key player in Cuba-U.S. relations, dies at 84)

His was a noteworthy life for other reasons as well:

When appointed by Fidel Castro as ambassador to the United Nations in 1966, at 29, he was among the youngest national representatives on the world body. Later, as foreign minister, he was a driving force in the U.N. General Assembly’s 1992 resolution condemning the 30-year-old U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. But as foreign minister and president of the Cuban National Assembly (parliament) for two decades, he also played a key role in de-freezing relations with the United States in the last years of the 20th century. (Ricardo Alarcón, powerful Cuban foreign minister, dies at 84)

But he was a person best judged by his own words.  To that end I repost the quite interesting interview he gave to Arturo López Levy posted 20 April 2022.

Conversando con el embajador Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, uno de los diplomaticos mas experimentados de Cuba, sobre el papel de las conversaciones de migración en las relaciones EEUU-Cuba. Alarcon fue embajador en la ONU en dos períodos (1966-1978), cargo desde el que ascemdió a viceministro y luego entre 1990-91 cuando sirvió dos veces como presidente del Consejo de Seguridad. Entre 1992 -1993 fue minsitro de relaciones exteriores. En febrero de 1993, fue electo Presidente de la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular en Cuba. donde sirvió hasta 2013. En todos esos cargos, Alarcon fue una figura clave en la política cubana hacia EE.UU bajo la dirección de Fidel Castro. Jefe de la Delegación cubana que negoció los acuerdos migratorios de 1984 y 1994-95 ha tenido la gentileza de conversar con el profesor Arturo López-Levy sobre la historia de estas conversaciones y otros temas.

The interview was posted to YouTube and may be accessed HERE (Diplomacia y Migración. Conversando con Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada).