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Before the end of his term, U.S. President Joe Biden removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and relaxed economic sanctions; and the Cuban dictatorship announced the “release” of 553 prisoners. A simple Google search for “Cuba release political prisoners” will yield results of all the times something similar has happened, that is, a perverse State policy of using innocent human beings, who are imprisoned for exercising human rights that in Cuba are considered crimes and then used as bargaining chips for international concessions.
But leaving aside the domestic debate in the United States, the possibility of a political opening in Cuba is difficult to imagine without the involvement of Latin American and European countries in its claim. In this regard, we must begin by pointing out the inconsistency in denouncing the fraud, repression and the illegitimate takeover of the Venezuelan presidency by Nicolás Maduro and not saying anything about the one-party regime in Cuba, where Article 21, paragraph 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is constitutionally violated.
And when something is said when comparing with Venezuela, as in the case of former Uruguayan President José Mujica, regarding the fact that in Cuba “they solved it and chose the single party”, it shows a cynicism and discrimination towards the Cuban people that is unworthy of a person who was elected to several positions after participating in competitive elections and whose Movement for Popular Participation (Tupamaros) is part of a coalition (Frente Amplio) of more than 20 different political groupings!
Gabriel Boric in Chile and Gustavo Petro in Colombia reached the presidency after social protests in their respective countries, but they have never raised their voices about the repression and massive imprisonments in Cuba as a result of the massive protests of July 11 and 12, 2021. With their silence, those who exercised the human right to protest in Chile and Colombia are accomplices of those who repressed and imprisoned peaceful demonstrators in Cuba.
As Uruguayan writer Carlos Liscano (1949-2023), who was a Tupamaro militant, political prisoner, exiled in Sweden and later an official in the governments of Tabaré Vázquez and José “Pepe” Mujica, pointed out in his book “Cuba, de eso mejor ni hablar”: “The Latin American democratic left cannot think clearly until it clarifies its position regarding the Cuban Revolution and expressly states that the Castro dictatorship not only violates human rights, but does not even acknowledge that they exist”.
The European Union, on the other hand, seems not to have taken notice of the setbacks in human rights after the signing of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement in 2016 with the non-democratic government of Cuba, a faithful ally of the autocracies of Russia, Belarus and, obviously, Venezuela. A change in EU policy towards Cuba would be desirable with the new Head of European diplomacy, Estonian Kaja Kallas, whose country suffered from communism. But for that to happen, it is necessary that those in charge of relations with Cuba from the European External Action Service do not continue to be Spanish EU diplomats nostalgic for the Cuban “revolution” but instead officials from countries with a tradition of diplomacy committed to human rights in Cuba.
Nor in Latin America or Europe did they even take note of the detailed conclusions of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, on “Crimes against humanity committed through the State's intelligence services: structures and individuals involved in the implementation of the plan to repress opposition to the Government” of December 20, 2022.
Section 4 of this report of the UN Human Rights Council includes the “Memorandum of Understanding with Cuba”, which states the following:
In this regard, in a recent interview with Claudio Fantini in the program Cuarto de Hora, conducted by journalist Jorge Elías on CADALTV, the expert in international affairs explained in a very didactic way why Cuban intelligence is one of the keys to the subsistence of the Venezuelan regime.
Therefore, condemning the Venezuelan dictatorship and ignoring the Cuban one is like seeing the tree but not the forest. Furthermore, according to experts consulted, when a State that did not sign the Treaty of Rome, such as Cuba, commits human rights violations in a State that did sign it, such as Venezuela, then it can be denounced in The Hague. Will the time ever come for the old Cuban military dictatorship to submit to international justice?
