Spain, Cuba normalize ties - dissidents attack Moratinos (Roundup)

Apr 4, 2007, 19:11 GMT

Havana - Spain's agreement to normalize ties with Cuba drew the ire of Cuba's dissident community Wednesday, as Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos chose not to meet opposition groups during his two-day visit to the island.

'The behaviour of Spain's government and embassy (...) has adapted to the conditions of exclusion that the Cuban regime imposes in relation to dissidents,' a dissident leader, Oswaldo Paya, said in a statement. 'We will not subject ourselves to those conditions in relations with Spain, which we find insulting.'

Paya, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, was one of a number of dissidents who refused to attend a meeting with another Spanish official scheduled for Wednesday in Havana.

Moratinos visited Havana on Monday and Tuesday, meeting with temporary leader Raul Castro and signing an agreement to create 'a bilateral mechanism for political consultations' with his Cuban counterpart Felipe Perez Roque.

It is the first time Cuba has signed such an agreement with a member of the European Union, but Perez Roque said earlier that the conditions 'are not yet right' for a similar dialogue with the European bloc.

The EU in 2003 imposed sanctions on Cuba following the arrest of 75 dissidents and the execution of three men who had hijacked a ferry to flee to the United States. Moratinos' visit has drawn criticism from opposition groups back home in Spain.

Perez Roque said late Tuesday that the Spain-Cuba talks will have 'no taboos,' and that it will also consider human rights issues. Moratinos called the agreement a 'new mechanism' for dialogue which will not 'exclude a single question.'

But when asked whether the bilateral forum would also debate the situation of political prisoners in Cuba, Perez Roque responded that Havana does not discuss this topic 'with other countries.'

Moratinos said that 'all issues' were discussed in an atmosphere of respect and trust during his two-day visit.

However, much of Cuba's dissident community on Wednesday said it was insulted that the minister did not meet with them during the trip.

Miriam Leiva, wife of one of the 75 dissidents imprisoned in 2003, said Moratinos backed out of an agreement to meet with them.

'The agreement of the Ladies in White was to meet with the Spanish delegation, but if it has already left and signed everything (with the Cuban authorities) there is nothing to talk about,' said

Leiva told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the Spanish government has betrayed the prisoners and all the people repressed since March 2003.

Her husband Oscar Espinosa Chepe, one of those arrested in 2003 and later freed for health reasons, agreed.

'There is no doubt that the Spanish government has sought the economic interests of Spanish firms in Cuba,' he said. 'The visit has been to reaffirm (Spain's place) in the Cuban market ahead of a possible change in Cuba, to take up good positions before the changes because they know it is a regime in its terminal phase.'

However, Manuel Cuesta Morua, the leader of the group Arco Progresista, said he would be attending the meeting and expressed hope about the bilateral agreement signed by Moratinos and Perez Roque on Tuesday.

'I hope this mechanism opens for the first time a possibility for the broad discussion of the (human rights) issue and that we obtain concrete results for Cuba, because it has been a topic that the Cuban authorities have avoided and it has been a taboo for society,' Cuesta Morua told dpa.

Within Spain, the opposition Partido Popular (PP) accused Moratinos on Wednesday of having travelled to Cuba to 'pay homage' to Castroism, while Cuban dissidents in Spain also criticized the visit.

'They have not gone there to facilitate the transition, to expand liberty, to improve the respect of human rights and the quality of life of citizens, but to pay homage (to the Cuban authorities) as if they were belated lefties,' said Vicente Martinez Pujalte, deputy spokesman for the conservative PP in the lower house of the Spanish Congress.

Martinez Pujalte added that his party will request that Moratinos appear before the legislature to explain his visit to Cuba.

Moratinos' visit was the first by a European foreign minister since 2003, and came just a few months before the EU is set to review its sanctions against Cuba.

Spain - Cuba's third-largest trade partner - has defended its relationship with the communist island, saying it is the main source of dialogue between Latin America and the European Union.