Europe’s relations with Cuba should require improvement on human rights

Posted on Wednesday, 01.29.14
EUROPE AND CUBA

Europe's relations with Cuba should require improvement on human rights
BY MARTIN PALOUS
HAVEL@FIU.EDU

In their meeting on Feb. 10, the European Union foreign ministers are
expected to approve the E.U. position for negotiations with Cuba about a
new agreement between the two parties.

Leaders of Cuba's pro-democracy movement on the island and in exile
question whether the replacement of the 1996 so-called Common Position
by a new instrument would be driven by economic interests of the member
states and will abandon the Cuban people who desire the same civil
liberties that Europeans enjoy. They point out that the Common Position
places conditions on normalization of relations with Havana tied to
significant human-rights improvement in Cuba, and fear that the E.U.
meeting would ignore, like the CELAC meeting just held in Havana, the
increase in government repression and provide some legitimacy to one of
the world's remaining totalitarian regimes.

Is it really so?

First of all, as Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European
Commission, said recently, the Common Position is to remain in force
until a new, legally binding agreement is developed.

Even when this happens, its spirit is not going to disappear, but rather
strengthen, and human rights should remain at the heart of the
relationship between the European Union and Cuba and constitute an
essential element of a new treaty.

And all 28 member states of the European Union must agree. Several among
them were trapped for decades behind the Iron Curtain before 1989 and
returned to Europe after the revolutions during that annus mirabilis.
They went through post-communist transitions and will use their own
experience in the upcoming Cuba discussions.

Whatever happens in Brussels in a few days, the negotiations that are to
start on a governmental level between the European Union and Cuba will
take time — it can be a couple of years — and there will be a space for
public diplomacy and the participation of Cuban civil society.

The impulse to engage Havana is clear: Europe doesn't want to treat Cuba
any longer as a special case; it does not want to provide a
justification, no matter how flimsy, for the regime to blame its
repression on the need to defend the Cuban revolution.

Years ago, the regime withdrew its application to join the Cotonou
Agreement, signed in 2000 between the European Union and 75 Latin
American and African countries. That agreement aims to bring them into
the world economy. Havana withdrew its application because the Europeans
insisted that Cuba be treated like any other country; that human rights,
environmental, labor and union requirements could not be waived and
should be made a theme of "comprehensive, balanced and deep political
dialogue, leading to commitments on both sides."

Havana, which claims it wants to reform its dysfunctional social and
economic system, now seems to agree with such a status change. So let it
be, but with all the consequences!

For the Cuban dictator, the European readiness to engage Cuba in a
discussion about a new European policy is a double-edged sword. While he
hopes that a new agreement legitimizes his single-party state and his
half-hearted economic reforms, the discussion with Europeans will also
focus on the abuse of human rights, the restrictions on trade and
commerce he imposes on the Cuban people and his unwillingness to
liberate Cubans' entrepreneur potential.

Let us be clear: A meeting of the European Union in Brussels will differ
from the CELAC charade just held in Cuba.

The Europeans pledge that human rights are and will remain a central
part of E.U. Cuba policy. Cuba's human-rights activists and freedom
advocates on the island have demonstrated great courage and commitment
to freedom and human rights — fundamental European values and principles
— for over half a century. If European deeds are consistent with
European words, they should and must be heard in Brussels.

Those who are allowed now to travel abroad should explain as many times
as necessary to European diplomats the real nature of the Castros' regime.

The cause of freedom in Cuba has many friends around the world. The
upcoming negotiation between the European Union and the Cuban government
is a challenge for Cuba's democracy advocates everywhere, but at the
same time it is their great opportunity. All of us now have work to do.

Martin Palous, a former Czech ambassador to the United Nations, is
director of the Vaclav Havel Library in Prague and senior fellow at the
School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International
University. He is president of the International Platform for Human
Rights in Cuba.

Source: Europe's relations with Cuba should require improvement on human
rights - Other Views - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/29/3901290/europes-relations-with-cuba-should.html