Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-03-Speech-3-016"
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"en.20030903.1.3-016"2
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"Mr President, it is not easy, especially for a Spanish person, to take an objective and dispassionate view of the Cuban problem, because Cuba has a place in the hearts of all Spanish people. Unfortunately, Cuba is an anomaly within the history of the European Union’s foreign relations, as has been pointed out here.
Back in 1995, it was not possible to fulfil the mandate given by the Summit to the Commission to present directives with a view to reaching a bilateral agreement at that time. And now, for the second time, Cuba’s incorporation into the Cotonou Agreement is being rejected, at a time when international attention, Mr President, has been focused on the Iraq crisis and taking advantage of that situation there has been a wave of repression, unprecedented in recent years, which has resulted in three death penalties and a wave of arrests which have affected independent journalists, human rights campaigners and peaceful dissidents, many of them from the Christian Liberation Movement.
This Parliament is going to adopt a very tough resolution, expressing its inescapable commitment to the cause of human rights and to all those in Cuba and outside it who are fighting for its freedom and its dignity. And I would ask myself, Commissioner, whether in these circumstances, with a country which does not wish to have a link with the European Union – because it has rejected incorporation into the Cotonou Agreement for a second time; with a country whose leaders reject Community aid; with a country whose leaders insult and denigrate European Union Heads of Government; with a country which imposes endless restrictions on the presentation of identity cards by the Commission’s diplomatic representative, it is worth, Commissioner, keeping the office in Havana open.
The draft compromise resolution, which will be voted on tomorrow, contains a condemnation of the closure of the Spanish Cultural Centre in Havana. And this does not surprise me, Mr President, because culture is freedom and, therefore, the person who knows most is the most free.
What I do not know is whether the Cuban authorities know that it is much more difficult to preserve and maintain the balance of freedom than to bear the weight of tyranny. The people who know this best, Mr President, are exemplary people – such as Oswaldo Payá, the winner of this Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, nominee for the Prince of Asturias Cooperation Prize and nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize – who bravely fight for their rights as people and as citizens and ultimately for their freedom, because they are perfectly aware that at the end of the day, Mr President, freedom – as a compatriot of mine said some years ago – does not make men happier, but simply makes them men."@en1
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