STATEMENT FROM THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The European Union capitulates
to the USA
• Cuba rejects the interfering
and disrespectful language
of the most recent EU Statement
ONCE again
the European Union has decided to capitulate to the
U.S. government over the subject of its policy
towards Cuba.
The
European Union, ignoring usual diplomatic practices,
published a communiqué on the morning of June 5 in
which they announced punitive measures against Cuba
and told the international community that they had
sent a letter to Cuban authorities. This only
reached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that
afternoon.
This
did not take the Foreign Ministry by surprise: we
were very well aware that Europe most probably hoped
that the aforementioned document would be seen in
Washington before it was seen in Havana.
They
are very conscious in Europe that their decision to
join in the U.S. government’s attacks against Cuba
will be seen as more proof of their contrition and
repentance over the differences that arose over the
war in Iraq between “Old Europe” — as Mr Rumsfeld
called it— and the imperial Nazi-fascist government
which is trying to impose a dictatorship on the rest
of the world.
The
new statement signed by the Fifteen is the
culmination of a stage of continual pronouncements
and aggressions against Cuba made at the very time
when our country has had to deal with the cunning
plans which people in Miami and Washington are
hatching to try to come up with pretexts for a
military attack on our country.
That
escalation included:
-
March 25, a Note from the Presidency protesting the
fair sentences handed down by Cuban courts on a
group of mercenaries in the service of the U.S.
government.
-
April 14, a new Statement from the Union’s Foreign
Relations Council, proposed by the Spanish foreign
minister, in which the mercenaries are referred to
as political prisoners and Cuba is crudely
threatened with steps that would affect “plans to
increase cooperation”.
-April 18, another protest Note from the Presidency
that repeats the threats against Cuba.
-April 30, at the request of a Spanish commissioner
the European Commission’s College of Commissioners
decides to postpone indefinitely any consideration
of Cuba’s application to join the Cotonou
Convention. Therefore, given Europe’s treacherous
behaviour, Cuba decided for the second time to
withdraw its application that it had made because
unanimously urged to do so by the Group of African
Caribbean and Pacific Countries.
Later, on May 27, there was another attempt to
deliver a protest Note, but our Foreign Ministry
refused to accept it because it thought this now
constituted intolerable inference in Cuba’s internal
affairs.
And,
lastly, this new Declaration appears and Cuba first
learns about it from the foreign press and not from
the European Union itself.
This
unheard of display against our country has been all
the more noticeable because of Europe’s proverbial
wisdom about keeping respectfully silent when it
suits it and even in being a tolerant bystander to
behavior and acts far worse than those of which Cuba
is now being groundlessly accused. How, for example,
are we to judge its silence over the U.S. army’s
crimes against the Iraqi civilian population?
It’s
too much. After exhausting its patience and
capacity for dialogue and tolerance, Cuba feels
obliged to reply to what it considers to be the
European Union’s hypocritical and opportunist
behaviour.
In
its most recent Declaration, “the European Union
laments that Cuban authorities have ended their de
facto moratorium on the death penalty. “
CUBA HAS
NEVER HEARD ONE WORD FROM THE EU CONDEMNING THE
DEATH PENALTY IN THE USA
Cuba
will not go into great detail about the
extraordinary reasons, explained more than once,
that forced it to take energetic measures against
three armed hijackers with criminal records who
threatened to kill dozens of hostages, including
several European tourists. Cuba has never heard a
word from the European Union condemning the death
penalty in the United States. It has never seen the
European Union spearhead a motion in the Human
Rights Commission condemning the United States for
inflicting the death penalty on minors, the mentally
ill and foreigners who were denied their right to
meet with their consuls. Cuba has never heard the
European Union criticize the 71 executions that took
place in the United States last year, including the
executions of two women. Why does the European Union
condemn the death penalty in Cuba and not in the
United States?
Therefore Cuba does not take the Union’s lament
seriously; it knows it is replete with hypocrisy and
double standards.
The
Declaration quotes verbatim from the letter
delivered to the Cuban Foreign Ministry in which it
repeats the same arguments the U.S. government uses.
It is once again seeking to disguise as “opposition
members” and “dissidents” mercenaries in the pay of
the U.S. government, who hope to play their part
from inside Cuba in the U.S. government’s goal of
overthrowing the Cuban Revolution.
Later on, the European Declaration appeals to the
Cuban authorities to ensure that the prisoners do
not suffer unduly as prisoners and are not exposed
to “inhuman treatment.” Cuba will make no attempt to
comment on this offensive appeal. All it will say is
that it is a despicable thing to do.
Cuba
will not repeat the arguments it has used over and
over again. It will only point out that it has never
heard the European Union say one word of censure
about the hundreds of prisoners —some of whom are
Europeans— whom the United States is holding, in
violation of the most basic norms related to human
rights, in the naval base in Guantanamo which it has
forced on us against our will. The European Union
has never said a word about the thousands of
prisoners that the United States has kept locked up
since September 11, often simply because of the way
they look or because they are Muslims. These people
do not enjoy even the most basic legal safeguards,
nor have they been tried, and their names have not
even been made public.
Four
measures have been announced.
First: To limit bilateral high-level government
visits.
We
must remember that in the last five years not one
European Union head of state or government has
visited Cuba.
Not
even the King of Spain, Don Juan Carlos 1, whose
natural charm and modesty have earned him the
respect of the Cuban government and people, was able
to carry out his official visit; the head of the
Spanish government, José María Aznar, who, according
to the constitution must give his approval, was
categorical. “The King will go to Cuba when it’s his
turn.”
What
is more, only two of the fifteen’s foreign ministers
have visited Cuba since 1998: Mr. Louis Michel, of
Belgium in 2001 — he made a genuine effort to expand
relations— and Mrs. Lydie Polfer from Luxembourg, in
2003.
No
one else in Europe — and they have even less desire
to do so— wanted to upset Washington. Meanwhile in
2002 alone, 663 high-level delegations from the rest
of the world visited Cuba, including 24 heads of
state or government and 17 foreign ministers.
Second: To reduce the participation of member
States in cultural events.
On
this unheard of decision by educated and civilized
Europe we will only say that its authors should, at
the very least, be ashamed of themselves.
To
make artists and intellectuals, both European and
Cuban, and our people who benefit from cultural
exchanges, into the particular victims of aggression
is such a reactionary measure that it seems
inconceivable here in the 21st century.
The
first indication of this absurd policy came from the
Spanish government in April when it cancelled the
Spanish delegation’s participation in the “La Huella
De España” (Traces of Spain) festival whose mission
is to pay homage to the culture of this sister
nation. And to that is added the fact that the
Spanish Cultural Centre in Havana, far from
promoting Spanish culture in Cuba, the purpose for
which it was created, has, in open defiance of Cuban
laws and institutions and in flagrant violation of
the intent of the agreement that set it up,
programmed a series of activities that have nothing
to do with its original function.
In
the next few days the Cuban authorities will take
the appropriate measures to convert this center into
an institution that truly meets the noble aim of
popularizing Spanish culture in our country.
EUROPEAN
AMBASSADORS, VIRTUAL EMPLOYEES OF THE HEAD OF THE
U.S. INTERESTS SECTION
Third: To invite Cuban dissidents to national
holiday celebrations.
This
decision, which will, to all intents and purposes,
convert European ambassadors in Havana into Mr.
Carson’s hired hands, and which will put the
embassies of the European Union’s member countries
at the service of the U.S. Interests Section’s
subversive work — something that up until now only
the Spanish embassy has done openly— formalizes the
European Union’s intention of defying the Cuban
people, their laws and institutions.
Cuba
calmly but firmly issues a warning to European
embassies and to local U.S. government mercenaries
that it will not tolerate provocation or blackmail.
The mercenaries who try to turn the European
embassies in Havana into centers for conspiring
against the Revolution should be aware that the
Cuban people are quite capable of demanding that our
laws be rigorously applied. European embassies
should be conscious of the fact that they will be
failing to meet their obligations under the Vienna
Convention on Diplomatic Relations if they allow
themselves to be used for subversion against Cuba.
The
responsibility for any measure that Cuba may have to
take to defend its sovereignty and the consequences
of these measures will lie exclusively with the
European Union, which, with unmitigated arrogance
has taken a decision which profoundly offends the
Cuban people’s sensibility and decorum.
Fourth: To re-examine the European Union’s Common
Position on
Cuba.
This
last point is Mr. Aznar and the Spanish government’s
way of announcing, from this moment on, its hopes of
making the wording of the so-called Common Position
on Cuba tougher. The Position, it is worth
remembering, was imposed by Spain on the rest of the
European Union in 1996.
On
November 13 of that year, under the headline: “Spain
proposes that the European Union cut credits to and
cooperation with Cuba” the Spanish daily El País
reported that:
“In
Brussels tomorrow, the Spanish government will
propose to its partners in the European Union that
they implement a strategy of economic harassment of
Fidel Castro’s regime (…) The package Aznar is
proposing closely follows the line of current U.S.
policy. The plan Aznar’s government wants to push
through entails cutting off the flow of cooperation
and credits from the Fifteen and raising the level
of dialogue with the anti-Castro opposition.
“(…)
The measures planned by Aznar … envisage a complete
break in Spanish Cuba policy…”
This
proposition would be added to the measures reported
on by the newspaper that day — these includes
Aznar’s attempt to cancel cooperation between the
fifteen countries and Cuba, the end of business
agreements and the elimination of the scant,
expensive and short-term credits that Cuba used to
receive at that critical time in the special period.
Dialogue with the opposition. Each of the fifteen
European ambassadors in Cuba would appoint a
diplomat who had specialized in setting up a high
level dialogue with groups that oppose Castro. The
European governments would invite these groups to
maintain high-level permanent contacts with them.
“This package would be made formal through an EU
“common position” and would be directly inspired by
the U.S. policy of harassment trumpeted abroad by
itinerant U.S. ambassador, Stuart Eizenstadt”.
According to El País, and this was later
confirm by what happened: “This U.S. diplomat has
gone around the European foreign ministries
stressing the need for the European Union to abandon
its current strategy …” towards Cuba.
“Eizenstadt has also promised that if the fifteen
members of the Union go along with the U.S. Way of
seeing things, Washington will “grant” its partners
successive postponements in the application of the
Helms-Burton Act which tightens the blockade on Cuba
and harasses European companies investing in Cuba”.
El
País
ended by saying: “Spain, which used to be the
mainstay of an autonomous way of doing things, would
thus become, if its initiative was successful, the
spearhead of the opposite tendency”.
And
Mr. Aznar’s initiative was successful. The Common
Position sprang from it as did later the shameful
European Union’s Understanding with the United
States over the Helms-Burton Act in which European
governments agreed to bow to the conditions imposed
by the United States in return for a U.S. promise
not to sanction European companies. This new
campaign of the European governments against Cuba
also stems from Aznar’s initiative.
AZNAR: MINOR
ALLY OF THE IMPERIALIST YANKEE GOVERNMENT
Mr
Aznar, obsessed with punishing Cuba and now a minor
ally of the Yankee imperial government, has been the
person mainly responsible for the fact that the
European Union has not developed an independent and
objective approach to Cuba and today is the man
mainly responsible for its traitorous escalation in
aggression, just when our little island has become
the peoples’ symbol of resistance to the threat of
the United States imposing a Nazi-fascist
dictatorship on the rest of the world, including the
European peoples —who were recently unrecognised and
humiliated when their stalwart opposition to the war
in Iraq was ignored— and even on the American people
themselves.
Cuba
knows that the Spanish government has been funding
the annexationist and mercenary groups that the
superpower is trying to organise in our country—
just as the U.S. government does, following the
dictates of the Helms-Burton Act.
How
can we explain Mr Aznar’s interest in “promoting
democracy in Cuba” if he was the first and only
European head of government to support the fascist
coup in Venezuela and offer his “support and
availability” to the ephemeral ”president” of the
Venezuelan coup?
Nevertheless, Cuba places no blame on the noble
Spanish people, or on any of the other European
peoples. On the contrary, Cuba is aware of how much
warmth and admiration it arouses in many of the
citizens of those countries — in spite of the
loathsome media campaigns— the source of almost one
million visitors every year. Cuba knows how much
solidarity it arouses in Europe and throughout these
years has received a helping hand from thousands of
European non-governmental organisations, civic
associations and town councils.
Cuba
is aware that the European peoples — giving an
exemplary ethical and humane lesson— opposed the war
in Iraq, which the European Union could not,
however, avoid, divided as it was by the betrayal of
the rest of Europe led by the Spanish government and
humiliated by a superpower which went so far as to
announce that it would launch a military attack on
the Hague if a single U.S. soldier was brought to
trial at the International Criminal Court there.
Cuba
has only feelings of friendship and respect for the
European peoples but cannot allow their governments,
trailing along behind the Spanish government’s
commitment to the groups of Cuban born terrorists
operating in Miami and to Bush’s government, to be a
part of setting up mercenary groups in Cuba whose
purpose is to help Yankee attempts to destroy the
Cuban Revolution and annex our country to the Unites
States.
The
European Union’s decision to join in with the
aggressive U.S. policy against Cuba has been
welcomed with great joy and loud applause not only
by the U.S. government, whose secretary of state
said: “The United States will be able to join with
the European Union in a common strategy against
Cuba”, but also by the mercenaries who are still
working for the U.S. government inside our country
and by the spokespeople for the Miami terrorist
groups.
The
so-called Council for Cuba’s Freedom, a Miami group
of Batista supporters which has recently been
demanding that President Bush decrees a naval
blockade of Cuba, said: “We are glad that Europe is
joining in with the pressure…” and the terrorist
Cuban-American National Foundation was extremely
happy and emphasised that “it was time that the
European countries realized…”
The
DPA news agency gave this title to its report: “
Rejoicing in the exile community over the European
Union’s decision on Cuba” and said that extremist
Cuban groups reacted enthusiastically and that the
top story on Miami Spanish language TV stations’
evening news broadcasts was the European Union’s
decision. The news bulletins focused their coverage
on the measures that the EU will take.
It’s
obvious whose needs are met by the European Union’s
statement and why the Miami terrorist groups are so
happy, groups that are responsible for bomb attacks
on European interests in Cuba and even for the death
of young Italian Fabio di Celmo. It is quite clear
why those who are today demanding that the U.S.
government tighten the blockade and step up military
aggression against our country are clapping their
hands.
Cuba, for its part, will defend its right to be a
free and independent nation with or without European
support and will even stand up to the connivance
between certain governments and the fascist clique
that today rules the United States.
Cuba
does not look upon all European governments equally
and is well aware which ones are the chief
instigators of this unwonted provocation.
Moreover, it must be said that the conduct of the
Italian government headed by Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi is giving a helping hand to the Spanish
government’s conspiratorial activities.
Italy took a unilateral decision to suspend its
development cooperation with Cuba, which this year
might have been worth almost 40 million Euros. This
included cancelling:
1.
An
aid credit for 17.5 million Euros, which would have
helped to improve irrigation systems and increase
food production in Granma and Havana provinces.
2.
An
aid credit of 7.4 million Euros for the Plaza del
Cristo in Old Havana. This money would have made it
possible to repair the homes of some 500 families,
two schools and drinking water, electricity and
sewage services for those living in the
neighbourhood.
3.
A
donation of 400, 000 Euros to set up a Senior
Citizens Care Centre in the old Belén Convent. This
would have provided services to some two hundred
older people and would have been managed by the
Office of the Historian, local Public Health
authorities and the Sisters of Charity order.
4.
A
donation of 6.8 million Euros though the United
Nations Development Programme which would have been
used to support local basic social services such as
education, health, care for the physically
challenged and senior citizens.
5.
A
donation of 6.8 million Euros, through UNDP, which
was to have been used for buying equipment for the
eastern provinces, basically for the health and food
production sectors.
6.
A
donation of 534, 000 Euros which would have financed
a cooperation and exchange programme between the
Italian University of Tor Vergata and the University
of Havana.
This
is the highly strange way in which the Italian
government is preparing to defend the human rights
of the Cuban people.
This
ridiculous role the Europeans are playing would make
one laugh were it not for the serious problems this
escalation entails.
And
we must state very clearly:
Cuba
does not recognize the European Union’s moral
authority to condemn it and much less to issue it
with a threatening ultimatum about relations and
cooperation. Cuba has taken decisions that only the
Cuban people and the Cuban government are competent
to judge, these decisions are absolutely legitimate
and rest solidly on our country’s laws and
Constitution.
The
European Union, which unlike Cuba is not blockaded
nor militarily threatened by the United States,
should look with respect on the Cuban people’s
struggle for its right to independence; it should
keep discreetly silent when it knows that it has
often kept quiet when it is looking after its own
interests; when it knows that it has never adopted a
common position on the repressive Israeli regime;
when it knows that it opposed the Human Rights
Commission even looking at the threat that war posed
to Iraqi children’s right to life.
Finally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminds the
European Union that Cuba is a sovereign country that
won its full independence as the result of a long
and painful process which included more than half a
century’s struggle against a corrupt neo-colonial
society which was established in our country after
the shameful Paris Agreements in which Spain ceded
Cuba to the United States behind the backs of Cuban
patriots.
Cuba
has won the legal right, recognised by international
law, to decide for itself, exercising its full
sovereignty and with no foreign interference, the
economic, political and social system which best
suits its people.
Cuba
does not accept the interfering and disrespectful
language of the latest European Union Statement and
asks it to refrain from offering solutions that the
Cuban people did not ask for. Cuba, however,
reiterates its respect and admiration for the
European peoples with whom it hopes to strengthen
honorably and in a dignified manner the most
fraternal and sincere relations as soon as History
sweeps away all this hypocrisy, rottenness and
cowardice,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Havana June 11, 2003
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