Democratic solidarity in Cold War: the case of Uruguay's diplomatic asylum policy in Cuba during the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship (1957-1958)

Abstract

The article delves into one of the most relevant issues that covered the relations between Uruguay and the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista since 1952: the active policy of diplomatic asylum that he deployed from his embassy in Cuba between 1957 and 1958 during the insurrectionary period of the Cuban democratic opposition and the massive dictatorial repression with which it was responded. The hypothesis that constitutes our conclusion is that this asylum policy adopted against Cuba was the result, on the one hand, of a foreign policy line of defense of democracy and respect for the inter-American treaties on asylum and, very importantly, the commitment of the ambassador to apply it on the ground, and, on the other, from the internal context of extensive international solidarity towards the Cuban revolutionaries from sectors of the Uruguayan political, university, student, journalistic and trade union world, who sought to influence government policy towards the dictatorship of Cambric. The work draws on primary sources preserved in archives from Uruguay, Cuba and other countries in the region, and secondary sources such as press articles and interviews from the time and historical studies on the subject.