Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-03-Speech-3-011"
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"en.20030903.1.3-011"2
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"Mr President, Mr President–in–Office of the Council, Commissioner Nielson, the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left unreservedly condemns the death penalty, and it has done so in the case of Cuba, as in the rest of the world. Our group also criticises the lack of freedoms and rights in Cuba – as it does in the rest of the world – but I would like to point out my experiences when I travelled from Argentina to Colombia and to Cuba last December. In Argentina I saw children suffering from hunger in the Tucumán hospital, in Colombia I saw people killed – there are thousands of deaths every year – by paramilitaries and also by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) with the complicity of the paramilitaries, the justice system and the army, but when I reached Cuba I found that children were not hungry – on the contrary, infant mortality is amongst the lowest in the world – there is culture, there is education, there are not thousands of deaths every year – as there are in Colombia – and there is therefore an obvious contrast.
I believe that the European Union can and must play a completely different role with regard to Cuba, a positive role, and one which is totally opposed to that of the United States. In fact, one of the most important elements in understanding what is happening in Cuba comes from the conduct of the United States: the permanent blockade which has lasted more than 40 years, the Helms-Burton laws – condemned by the UN and denounced by the European Union – are a serious abuse. We must remember the siege and the actions against Cuba – also promoted by the United States – which have led to more than 3 500 Cuban victims and immense economic losses. All of this implies pressure and great influence from the anti-Cuban mafias in Florida, which, by the way – what a coincidence – have given victory to Bush, in one case, by a narrow margin – and also a rather doubtful one – as well as significant promotion for Mr Aznar in Spain, both in 1996 and in 2000, as acknowledged by a magazine in Miami which stated that Aznar’s victory was a victory for Cuban dissidents.
All of this indicates that the general context is one of continuous siege by the United States. Colin Powell himself recognises that USD 22 million are channelled to the dissidents, in order to promote disturbances, in order to even promote an assault, as in the case of the actions in Iraq.
I therefore believe that we should recognise that the European common position has failed, it is something that Aznar has imposed on the European Union and which takes us nowhere, and our position should therefore be one of dialogue without conditions, one of promoting cultural and economic agreements with Cuba, because that is the message which the rest of Latin America, and the rest of the world, expects. Because, as Fidel Castro quite rightly said in January 1999 – when the euro was put in place – the euro gives great hope that the developing world, and all countries, will be able to be freed from the yoke of the dollar. I believe that the European Union must play this positive role and not the negative role played by the United States."@en1
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