CUBA-EU: Reactions to Sanctions Put Relations at an Impasse

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Jun 11 2003 (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 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.