Posted on Fri, Jun. 20, 2008
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press Writer
HAVANA --
Fidel Castro on Friday slammed an EU decision lifting diplomatic
sanctions against Cuba but imposing tough human rights conditions,
calling it an "enormous hypocrisy" in light of Europe's new rules on
illegal immigration.
The ailing 81-year-old former leader, who handed power over to his
younger brother Raul in February, said in an online essay that the EU
has no right to lecture Cuba on human rights given what he called the
"brutal" immigration policy.
"At my age and in my state of health, you don't know how long you're
going to live," he wrote on the CubaDebate Web site. "But from now on I
wish to register my scorn for the enormous hypocrisy behind this decision."
Castro also said neither the sanctions nor their end would have
"absolutely any economic consequence" for Cuba, which is also the target
of a decades-old U.S. economic embargo.
The immigration measures adopted by the European Union this week seek to
standardize the process by which illegal immigrants are held and
deported in member nations. It contains some contentious provisions,
such as allowing for migrants to be held for as long as 18 months before
being expelled.
Raul Castro's government has yet to comment on the lifting of the
sanctions. But a number of Cuban dissidents expressed disappointment Friday.
Opposition writer and economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe said he worries
about Europe lifting pressure on Raul Castro's government before it
improves human rights policies.
The EU decision "could send a bad message to the Cuban government, which
hasn't released the prisoners," said Chepe, who was among 75 government
opponents arrested and sentenced in a 2003 crackdown that prompted the
EU sanctions.
He was one of 20 in that group who were later released for medical reasons.
Espinosa Chepe's wife, Miriam Leiva, said EU members seeking an open
dialogue with Cuba will be disappointed to find "only a monologue."
But at least one government opponent welcomed the move.
Dissident Manuel Cuesta Morua, who calls himself a social democrat, said
the EU move could promote open dialogue with Europe and encourage Cuba
to undertake some reforms. "Confrontation doesn't work," he said.
Thursday's EU decision was largely symbolic since the sanctions, which
banned high-level Cuban officials from visiting EU nations and promoted
inviting dissidents to embassy cocktail parties in Havana, were
suspended two years after they were imposed. The EU decided the tactic
was not helping dialogue with the island's government, and many European
nations dropped dissidents from their embassy party lists to encourage
higher-level Cubans to attend the soirees.
But the EU said it might take new measures if Cuba fails to release all
political prisoners, give all Cubans access to the Internet and allow EU
delegations in Cuba to meet opposition figures as well as government
officials.
Officials said the EU will evaluate Cuba's progress in a year.
The U.S. government said it supports the EU's conditions for measuring
Havana's progress on rights issues over the next 12 months.
"These benchmarks send the right message about what is important: the
need for the Cuban government to change the way it treats its citizens,"
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. "If the
Cuban government intends to undertake meaningful change, it will take
concrete steps to improve its human rights record."
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