POLITICS: Cuba’s Foreign Agenda Pulls EU in Two Directions

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Nov 29 2001 (IPS) - The Cuban government once again achieved a resounding international rejection of the United States-imposed embargo against the island, though it has not had such good fortune as far as its human rights record, and both are key matters on the island’s foreign agenda.

On these two issues, which reflect Havana’s principal quarrels with the United States, the Fidel Castro government is paying close attention to the stance of the European Union (EU), which opposes the 40-year-old trade embargo against Cuba but would like to see political and institutional changes on the island.

EU representatives are to fly to Havana Friday in an attempt to renew the political dialogue that was interrupted in 1996 when the Europeans drew up their first “Common Position”, an official recommendation for democratic opening in Cuba.

The EU mission will talk with Cuban authorities “without conditions and about all issues,” however, a withdrawal of the Common Position, which is renewed every six months, is not necessarily under consideration.

“Everything will be discussed, including terrorism. There will be no taboo issues,” said Louis Michel, Belgium’s foreign affairs minister, in comments in Brussels. Belgium holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of December.

A source from the internal Cuban opposition groups told IPS Wednesday that they had not yet received an invitation to meet with the European delegates.

“We are willing to give our opinion. Like the Europeans, we are also in favour of change” in Cuba, Gerardo Sánchez, with the illegal Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, told IPS.

In the opinion of Cuban Foreign Minister, Felipe Pérez Roque, the EU Common Position has been “surpassed by time” and that a broader platform is now necessary for Cuba-EU relations.

But in practice the EU stance has prevented Cuba from gaining access to a framework accord with the bloc and from integrating the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries that are former European colonies. The nearly one hundred ACP countries benefit from special European aid packages.

The EU supported the resolution on the need to end “the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba,” approved Tuesday by a vote of 167 to three in the United Nations General Assembly.

Only the United States, Israel and the Marshall Islands opposed the UN resolution, with abstentions by Latvia, Micronesia and Nicaragua.

The vote in favour represents more than 88 percent of the 189 UN member states, and 93 percent of the 179 countries authorised to vote in the General Assembly, considering that 10 could not participate due to financial moratoria imposed by the global forum.

The UN General Assembly has been approving similar resolutions in favour of Cuba since 1992, but Washington has been reticent to loosen the embargo, even tightening its grip in 1996 with the Helms-Burton Act, which codified the prohibitive measures in place since 1960.

The law stipulates sanctions against third countries that engage in business in Cuba that involves property expropriated from U.S. citizens by the Castro government in the 1960s.

It is precisely the application of this measure that is a continual threat for those seeking to invest in the socialist-run island and is the main thorn in EU relations with the United States as far as the latter’s policy towards Cuba.

The EU is sharply critical of the U.S. laws that unilaterally penalise others and which jeopardise the evolution of trans-Atlantic cooperation and could be compromising joint efforts in the current fight against international terrorism.

Nevertheless, the European bloc is a strong ally of the United States in its demands for political change in Cuba, which in turn categorically denies all accusations related to human rights and asserts, on the contrary, that the island is a “model” in this area.

Last April in Geneva, the EU member countries once again voted in favour of a resolution in the UN Commission on Human Rights condemning Cuba for its human rights record.

This same stance by the Europeans the year before had led to the cancellation of an EU mission intended to re-start dialogue with Havana.

Cuban diplomacy has been unable since 1990 to prevent the passage of motions by the UN Commission on Human Rights to censure the island, with the exception of 1998. That year, say analysts, Pope John Paul II’s visit to Cuba had enough international impact to give Havana the lift it needed to avoid condemnation.

The Cuban government claims the human rights resolutions are the result of U.S. efforts to discredit the island. In general terms, the UN condemnations charge that the Castro government bans political opposition and imprisons dissidents, maintains state control over the press and does not hold truly open presidential elections.

In their defence, the Cuban authorities assert that the socialist regime, which has ruled this country for more than 40 years, respects the right to life, health, education, employment and social security of the population “like no other” government does.