Europe’s Carrot Meets Castro’s Stick
On Thursday, the European Union announced that it was officially lifting its sanctions on Cuba in a move that should give hope to tyrannical dictators everywhere. The message Europe sent is that if such a dictator is belligerent enough for long enough Western democracies will eventually wear down enough to overlook almost any abuse.
In order to understand the significance of this week’s announcement one has to understand the relationship Cuba has had with Europe in the post-Soviet era.
In 1996 the European Union adopted what is known as its “Common Position on Cuba.” In a nutshell, the Common Position is “to encourage a process of transition to a pluralist democracy and the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as a sustainable recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people.”
The Castro regime rejects the Common Position, which it characterizes as interfering with Cuba’s sovereignty. In any case, the EU set out to encourage a change from within Cuba via diplomatic and economic contacts.
During the spring of 2003 the Castro regime arrested and imprisoned 75 dissidents, opposition members and independent journalists. This coincided with the arrest and lightning-fast trial and execution of three afro-Cuban men who stole a launch in a doomed attempt to escape the worker’s paradise. This period of time has been dubbed the Cuban “Black Spring”.
In response, the Europeans placed a series of sanctions on Cuba. Although the sanctions were relatively weak (limiting diplomatic contacts, inviting of dissidents to official embassy celebrations, etc.), they were a statement nonetheless that Cuba’s actions were unacceptable.
Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, began an effort to have the sanctions removed, and in January of 2005 they were suspended. Since then the Common Position has continued to be the de facto policy of Europe toward Cuba while the sanctions were technically still in place but indefinitely suspended. Only Europeans could come up with such confusing set of policies.
The problem for the Castro regime was that it desired normal relations with Europe so that it could benefit from an “EU economic cooperation agreement” that every other country in Latin America has. The rub has been that Cuba wants the carrot but has been unwilling to negotiate away its “right” to abuse human rights, suppress political opposition, outlaw private property, etc. It wanted something for nothing, and hid behind the argument that its sovereignty was under assault.
Exactly one year ago the European Union invited Cuba to the negotiating table stating that it “would be ready to resume a comprehensive and open political dialogue with the Cuban authorities.”
The Euros were trying to do what Barack Obama claims America should do, and what he would do if elected; to sit at the negotiating table with Raul Castro and see if the goal of transitioning Cuba from an outlaw totalitarian regime to a pluralistic democracy that respects human rights could be achieved through talks.
The answer to Europe’s offer was not “no”, but “HELL NO!”
The Foreign Ministry did not mention human rights specifically, but said the EU’s invitation for dialogue “meddles, in a slanderous way, in strictly internal Cuban affairs, making judgments and announcing unjust and hypocritical acts that Cuba considers offensive and unacceptable and rejects completely.”
Which brings us back to Thursday’s announcement. Despite the hoopla about minor changes in Cuban policies, mainly the lifting of bans on some consumer goods, the political climate in Cuba has not changed. A leading dissident on the island, Oswaldo Payá, states: “This regime has not announced any change that is significant for rights or liberty, and we know we have to conquer that ourselves.”
Notably, 55 of the original 75 dissidents arrested and imprisoned in 2003 still find themselves behind bars and the three executed would-be boat thieves are still dead. I’m sure their families understand that canceling the measures put in place to protest those actions is just a new strategy to “reason” with those that committed the injustices.
As if to taunt the European Union for its naivety and sheer stupidity, during the morning hours of Friday June 20th, Raul Castro and his merry band of thugs arrested Cuban dissident Jorge Luis Garcia Perez.
I wonder what other situations we could apply Europe’s novel approach of reward before remorse to. Perhaps Charles Manson will change his way of thinking if we only release him from prison. I’m sure he’d be quite amenable to that. After all, keeping him behind bars all these years hasn’t changed his mind.
This is OT but related. The EU has agreed to toughen policies on undocumented immigrants, including extending the time they can be held in detention centers. I think this applies largely to people whose request for asylum has been turned down but for various reasons cannot be deported immediately. The link to this article is that Hugo Chavez has threatened to stop oil sales to Europe because the new regulations violate human rights.
Obama would be the person who sees a sign, “Wet Paint”, and then touches it and sees the paint on his fingers and makes the excuse, “Well, I wanted to see if was dry.
Some people will not take direction. Hillary is one of those people. Just about all of elected offices have a staff and or advisors. Think about it. The President has his Cabinet, Congressmen and women, Senators etc. etc. Speeches are prepared for them (think tele-monitors) the audience is salted with people who are going to ask questions that do not embarrass the speaker. The real tough questions are eliminated by the controlling switch. Questions are edited before hand. When the oil CEO’s were questioned by Congress it was a joke. Our Congress hasn’t the intelligence to form a question with relevance to the context of the subject at hand.
Obama is being coached and advised and they are not doing him any justice. Hillary was coached and her ego would not allow their advise.
THis is biased article, like everything on this website…I agree that the lifting of teh EU sanctions will do nothing to enourage democracy in Cuba.
At the same time, I think its the moral thing to do. Cuba, dictator or not, is a soverign nation that deserves to be part of world community. Should we also sever all ties with Saudia Arabia, Vietnam, China – and other countries in the Middle east -which by the way are wholly worse off the Cuba.
This person demonizes Cuba, which should be, but exaggerates how bad it is…. you have never been to Cuba in the past 20 years.. its bad (ie. poverty, repressive polices on freedom of speech), but not vietnam or even rural China bad..
Or even go to “democracies” Go to Dominian republic, Hati, even Jamica, – analyze their infrastructe and education system = much worse off than cuba.
OR even Costa Rica, the bastion of western style democracies and strong ally of US has more prostitutes than Cuba, which you always lament. Go to downtown San Jose, you will see with your own eyes. Brazil , a realtively rich country, also has more prostittues.
In my humble opinion, its all about Miami and their desire that Cuba “reflect” their warped view of “freedom”. Freedom will come from within or from nowhere… Cubans are fiercy nationalistic – partly b/c what Batista and prior dictators did to that country.
I am anti-castro, but also anti-exile at once. This puts me with the majority of common Cubans (the ones living and making a life in cuba).
Afina,
I don’t care about any other country you mention. I care about Cuba. Thanks for your comment though, even as ill-informed as it is. I’ll leave you with one question. How can an opinion-based web site be free of bias?
still behind bars? The only i am curious though is the fact that powerful nations, especially the US and in this case the EU have been meddling/meddles/or will meddle with the affairs of other nations! Only them are correct and those who have ideas not parallel to them are wrong.
You’re totally right, webloglearner. Spot on. I’m sure in some countries, imprisoning political opponents is the cool thing to do. And hell, if that country should think that murdering them is cool too, who are we to judge, right?
I’m sure the world will be a pretty sweet place once we ditch that ‘moral responsibility’ nonsense that has been holding us back all this time.
Castro put the supposed dissidents in jail because he needed currency to deal with the world nations confronting him on the democracy issues. It is relatively easy for castro to find this currency, it comes in the form of human lives plucked from the people he claims to serve.
He is willing to kill them all to get his way. It is a game of chicken. And castro always wins, the US and EU always blink and wind up acquiescing. Obama, McCain, neither one will be any better than the last 20 presidents castro has put in his rear view mirror. The Miami exiles will continue to allow castro to sacrifice the Cubans while they live their now great lives in Miami.
Those who say democracy has to come from within are copping out, although I do not mind complete sovereignty. There isn’t much left within, too many have left.