Cuban dissidents criticize Spain’s overtures to Havana

Labor activist Ivan Hernandez Carrillo is one of the imprisoned dissidents critical of Spain's overtures to Cuba

Cuban dissidents have released an open letter to protest at Spain’s attempt to normalize European relations with communist Cuban authorities in the run-up to the Spanish EU presidency.

The letter, signed by 37 dissidents, 33 of whom remain in prison, criticizes Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos for rebuffing human rights activists while visiting Havana last week. He told his hosts that Spain would use the EU presidency to “elevate relations” between the EU and the communist regime.

“The refusal to meet with the opposition, listen to its opinions and become aware of the suffering of political prisoners and their families is a sign of contempt which the minister already showed during his previous visit in 2007,” the letter said.

The signatories include three dissidents recognized by  the National Endowment for Democracy earlier this year: independent labor activist Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, serving 25 years at the Prison “El Pre”, Guamajal, Villa Clara; José Daniel Ferrer García, serving 25 years at the Prison Provincial de Las Tunas; and Librado Linares García,, serving 20 years at the Prison, La Pendiente, Villa Clara Kilo.

The dissidents expressed the hope that “[this] attitude of contempt, with which the Spanish government treats Cuban democrats, should not encompass the entire European Union.” Other EU member states, including the UK, Sweden and the former communist states of central and eastern Europe are known to oppose Spain’s overtures to Havana. 

European democracy and human rights NGOs like the Czech Republic’s People In Need, a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy, are also critical of Madrid.

The US administration reportedly took advantage of the Moratinos trip to send a message that Havana should initiate reform and improve human rights.

“Have (Moratinos) tell the Cuban authorities we understand that change can’t happen overnight, but down the road, when we look back at this time, it should be clear that now is when those changes began,” President Barack Obama told visiting Spanish premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero earlier this month, according to diplomatic sources.

The US administration is pursuing a policy of cautious and incremental engagement with Havana. But the regime has shown little inclination to reciprocate, punishing students and bloggers who have expressed interest in visiting the U.S. or in U.S.-Cuba exchange programs.

Moratinos is pushing the EU to drop the 1996 “Common Position” on Cuba and fully normalize ties with Raul Castro’s dictatorship. The current EU policy on Cuba is “to encourage a process of transition to pluralist democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as a sustainable recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people,” a position Havana portrays as an infringement of its sovereignty.

But Spain appears to be motivated by its commercial interests in Cuba’s oil and tourism sectors.

Normalization of relations would represent a diplomatic coup for the communist authorities although, an Inter-American Dialog analysis notes, “Cuba, once a lonely communist outcast, is now enjoying a wave of international engagement that was virtually inconceivable even a decade ago.”  

Economic and geo-strategic factors are prompting a range of states, principally but not exclusively authoritarian Venezuela and China, to strengthen commercial and security ties with the regime:

While Raúl will never be able to rival Fidel’s international stature, his foreign policy is benefiting from the range of newly empowered actors in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere that seek to lessen the island’s international isolation at the same moment that his government is attempting to build a broader base of political and economic ties with the world.