Spain's new opening to Cuba a risky gambit
By ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com
MADRID -- The Spanish government's recent decision to improve ties with
Cuba ''is bearing its fruits,'' and the process will continue without
abandoning the island's dissidents, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel
Angel Moratinos told me in an interview last week.
Moratinos, who was criticized widely at home following an April visit to
Cuba in which he met with top Cuban officials but not with dissidents,
is still in the midst of a fierce political fight over Spain's Socialist
government's new overtures to Cuba.
At a recent congressional hearing, the right-of-center Popular Party
pounded Moratinos with questions over why he had failed to meet with
dissidents, and why he stood silent when, at a joint press conference in
Havana, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque claimed that there are
no political oppositionists in Cuba, but only ''mercenaries'' of the
United States.
''This is an ongoing issue for us,'' says Gustavo de Arístegui, a
foreign affairs spokesman for the right-of-center opposition Popular
Party's legislative bloc. ``This government's mistakes on Cuba and
Venezuela are scandalous.''
The trip also was criticized by influential Socialist Party supporters
in the media. Spain's ruling Socialist Party has had good relations with
Cuba's peaceful opposition since former President Felipe González's
1982-96 rule.
Are you pursuing a pro-Cuban, pro-Venezuelan, Third Worldish foreign
policy, as the opposition says? I asked Moratinos.
''I don't think so,'' Moratinos said. ``What this government has done is
to recover Spain's capacity to exert influence in a continent that is
essential to Spanish interests.''
STRATEGIC AGREEMENTS
''We have strategic association agreements with the countries with which
we consider we have to have a privileged relationship: Mexico, Brazil,
Argentina, Chile and now we want to add Colombia,'' he added. ``And
then, we have relations with all, obviously including Venezuela, Cuba,
Bolivia, because it's what the different citizens in Cuba, Venezuela and
Bolivia have decided.''
Asked about the controversy over his recent trip to Cuba, Moratinos
noted that a senior member of his delegation -- Latin American affairs
director Javier Sandomingo -- met with the dissidents during his trip to
Havana, and that higher-ranked officials often meet with them on other
occasions.
''I have the support of the majority of Spanish citizens, who didn't
understand why the government of Spain is not more present in Cuba at a
key historic moment for the future of Cuba,'' Moratinos said. ``What we
have done is to open a new way, a new mechanism of dialogue, which is
bearing its fruits.''
He said that after years without a regular high-level diplomatic
dialogue, Spain and Cuba are holding talks without taboos, which are
expected to lead to the reopening of the Spanish Cultural Center in
Havana, closed in 2003, and to a resumption of Spanish development aid
to the island.
This dialogue includes human rights, and also will benefit dissidents,
he said.
Trinidad Jiménez, Spain's secretary of state for Iberoamerican affairs,
was a little bit more forthright. Asked about Cuba's foreign minister's
claim that oppositionists on the island are ''mercenaries,'' Jiménez
said. ``If we believed that the dissidents are mercenaries, we would
never have met with them. For us, they are people for whom we have a
profound respect, who we support, and for whom we feel solidarity.''
WILL OF CITIZENS
My opinion: I hope that Moratinos misspoke when he included Cuba among
the countries that represent the will of their citizens. Cuba's citizens
have not had a free election in nearly five decades.
I don't think Spain's new effort to start a dialogue with Cuba should be
criticized outright, despite Moratinos' mistakes in his April trip. (He
should have sent at least his No. 2 to talk with the dissidents, rather
than his No. 3, and not remained silent when the Cuban foreign minister
made his ''mercenaries'' statement.)
If Moratinos' actions during his trip to the island were one-time
concessions that will lead to a new Spanish political and cultural
presence on the island, and to a stronger voice in support of
fundamental civil freedoms, it may have been a price worth paying. If
not, it will amount to having given diplomatic oxygen to a decrepit
dictatorship and a step back from Spain's Socialist Party's own previous
support to pro-democracy activists on the island. We will know in coming
months.
No comments:
Post a Comment