Courting Castro

摘要

Chilean officials like to compare their country to Finland and New Zealand, rather than its South American neighbours. The centre-left governments that have ruled since 1990 have signed free-trade agreements with half the world. To address fears of becoming isolated from a sometimes unstable neighbourhood, Michelle Bachelet, the current socialist president, has stressed closer ties with Latin America. Last month that tendency took her to Cuba.rnMany Chileans were unhappy about this. But more than the smiling photos with Raul and Fidel Castro, what turned the trip into a public-relations disaster was that Fidel chose the moment of her visit to publish an article backing Bolivia's claim to recover its former coastline, lost to Chile in a 19th-century war.