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REPORTS: CUBA - US |
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Reactions
to Sanctions Put Relations at an Impasse
Patricia
Grogg
HAVANA, (IPS) - The Cuban
government reacted forcefully Wednesday
to the European Union's recently-imposed
diplomatic sanctions, warning the
15-member bloc that it will apply the
letter of the law if European embassies
in Havana are turned into ”centres for
conspiring against the revolution.”
The Fidel Castro government also
convened protests ”of the combative
Cuba people” to take place Thursday
outside the embassies of Spain and
Italy, countries it fingers as the
leaders of the EU's critical attitude
towards Havana.
”European embassies should be aware
that they will be failing to meet their
obligations under the Vienna Convention
on diplomatic relations if they allow
themselves to be used for subversive
activities against Cuba,” Foreign
Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said
Wednesday.
The EU announced diplomatic sanctions
against Havana on Jun. 5 in response to
the Castro government's April crackdown
on the dissident movement, which
included harsh prison sentences for 75
journalists and rights activists, and
the execution, after a summary trial, of
three men who had attempted to hijack a
passenger ferry to sail to the United
States.
The sanctions include limiting
high-level bilateral diplomatic visits,
reducing the participation of EU member
states in cultural events related to
Cuba, and once again reviewing the EU
”common position” on the island.
The EU also announced its intention to
invite members of the Cuban opposition
to celebrations in Havana of member
countries' national days, a move
especially irritating to the
socialist-run island's government, which
has long categorised dissidents as
mercenaries.
In the opinion of Pérez Roque, the EU
will put the embassies of its member
states ”at the disposal of the
subversive work” of the U.S. Interests
Section in Cuba, ”something that,
until now, only the Spanish embassy
openly engaged in.”
”The mercenaries who try to turn the
European embassies in Havana into
centres for conspiring against the
revolution should know that the Cuban
people will demand that our laws be
vigorously enforced,” said the foreign
minister.
Dissidents consulted by IPS described
the European move as a gesture of
solidarity and recognition of their
movement, and they did not rule out the
possibility of the Castro government
taking an even harder line against them.
”I think there could be more arrests
because the government is not concerned
about the political costs of its
actions,” said dissident economist
Vladimiro Roca, released from prison in
May 2002 after serving a five-year
sentence. He noted that invitations for
activists to attend European events on
the island are nothing new.
”Before that decision was taken, we
were already participating in official
activities of European nations, like
Britain, Sweden and Norway,” said Roca,
who was imprisoned after co-writing a
socio-economic critique of the Cuban
Communist Party titled ”The Homeland
is for All of Us.”
Pérez Roque had some harsh words for
each of the EU's measures, which he said
”crown a period of continuous
pronouncements and aggressions against
Cuba.” The official did not take
questions from journalist after he read
his statement.
The ”escalation” includes the EU
presidency's protest, made Mar. 25 after
Cuban courts handed down sentences of as
much as 28 years in prison for 75
dissidents accused of conspiring with
the United States against the island's
government.
Before then, the relations between Cuba
and the EU were notoriously relaxed and
constructive, and included the recent
inauguration of a EU diplomatic office
in Havana, in the charge of the bloc's
trade attaché to Cuba.
But the current stances of Brussels and
Havana brought to an abrupt halt the
process that encouraged political
dialogue and was to lead to the island's
inclusion in the Cotonou Agreement,
which channels EU assistance to its
member nations' former colonies.
On Apr. 30, the European Commission, the
EU's executive body, decided to postpone
indefinitely Cuba's request for
admission into the Cotonou Agreement.
Cuba, in turn, decided to withdraw the
petition.
”It is obvious that Cuba's diplomatic
isolation will now be much greater, and
the worst is that government doesn't
seem concerned about it,” commented
veteran opposition activist Elizardo Sánchez,
head of the illegal but so far tolerated
Cuban Commission for Human Rights and
National Reconciliation, in a
conversation with IPS.
The Cuban government's declaration
Wednesday lashed out at the government
of Spain, which it blamed for the fact
that the EU does not have an objective
and independent policy approach to the
island.
”Cuba knows that the Spanish
government has been financing -- just as
the U.S. government has -- the
'annexationist' and mercenary groups
that the superpower is trying to
organise within our country,” said the
foreign minister.
Havana does not judge all of the
European governments equally, and
”knows well who are the principal
instigators of this unusual
provocation,” he added.
Pérez Roque went on to accuse the
Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi
directly, saying it had joined the
”conspiratorial activity of the
Spanish government” in unilaterally
halting its development assistance for
Cuba.
During the second half of 2003, the
rotating presidency of the EU will be in
the hands of Italy, which supports a
harder line policy towards Havana.
”This confrontation is a setback for
those of us who have staked our bets on
dialogue,” commented Manuel Cuesta Morúa,
spokesman for Arco Progresista, a
dissident coalition of social- democrat
leanings.
The activist said he is worried that
other European governments will back
Italy in ”decisions that do not harm
the Cuban government, but rather the
Cuban people,” like the Berlusconi
administration's decision to cut
development aid.
But he said the Cuban authorities should
do their part to thaw relations with the
EU, such as releasing some of the 75
recently imprisoned dissidents,
particularly those who suffer health
problems, like Oscar Espinoza Chepe and
Roberto de Miranda.
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