Memorandum of Conversation between Mexican Foreign Ministry Official with Cuban Charge d’Affaires, Mexico City

EP 31558

2nd PART

MEMORANDUM

The Chargé d’Affaires of Cuba [Ramon Sinobas] visited Undersecretary [Pablo] Campos Ortiz. He dealt with the following matters:

1.- He asked if there was a response yet to [Cuban] Ambassador [Carlos] Lechuga’s question about the possibility that a Japanese ship transfer to a Cuban ship - directly from ship to ship without using the dock – in a Mexican port certain cargo that the Japanese ship brings [with it] destined for Havana.

Campos Ortiz responded to the Chargé d’Affaires [saying] that the answer was negative, since the opinion that Mexican authorities have in this respect and that was applied the first time in the case of the Norwegian Ship “Teneriffa” applies in respect to any port facility, use of the dock, use of quay or transfer inside the ship.

2.- The Chargé d’Affaires asked if it was true that the Spanish ship Monte Ayala had left shipment with destination to Cuba in Progreso [Yucatán].

Campos Ortiz told him that the information in this respect, which appeared in the newspapers on the 29th, has no basis whatsoever and that Excelsior on this date published an explanatory about the specific case.

3.- The Commercial Attaché said that Cuban authorities through various companies have acquired from CONASUPO [the National Company of Popular Subsistence] four thousand five hundred tons of rice; that this operation is already concluded and that the only thing missing is to send it to Veracruz, where a Cuban ship or a ship that the Government of Cuba charters will pick it up. Mr. Sinobas added that an operation to buy one thousand five hundred tons of beans is also about to be concluded, an operation that is being carried out by the Agricultural Bank [Banco Agricola]. The beans would be sent to Cuba at the same time as the rice. The ones in charge of the shipment of this merchandize, Mr. Sinobas continued, have informed the Cuban Commercial Agency (Agency that depends on the Cuban Embassy in Mexico) that the [Mexican] Secretariat of [the] Navy has told them that at the request of the [Mexican] Secretariat [Ministry] of Foreign Relations, Cuban ships cannot transport said merchandise.

Mexico, 30 October 1962