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CUBAN LIBRARIES
SOLIDARITY GROUP June
19, 2003
The EU, ignoring usual diplomatic practices, published a communiqué on the morning of June 5th in which they announced punitive measures against Cuba and told the international community that they had sent a letter to Cuban authorities. This only reached the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs that afternoon. This did not take the foreign ministry by surprise: they were very well aware that Europe probably hoped that the document would be seen in Washington before it was seen in Havana. The EU's decision to join in the US government's attacks against Cuba will be seen as more proof of their contrition and repentance over the differences that arose over the war in Iraq between "Old Europe" - as Mr Rumsfeld called it - and the imperial Nazi-fascist government which is trying to impose a dictatorship on the rest of the world. The new statement signed by the Fifteen members of the EU is the culmination of a stage of continual pronouncements and aggressions against Cuba made at the very time when Cuba has to deal with the cunning plans which people in Miami and Washington are hatching to try to come up with pretexts for a military attack on Cuba. The latest EU measures against Cuba have been taken because of the recent arrest of so-called "dissidents" in Cuba (in fact these "dissidents" are financed and supported by the US Interests Section in Havana) and the execution of three armed hijackers (who had criminal records and who threatened to kill dozens of hostages, including several European tourists). If the EU is against the death penalty, why did it not criticise the 71 executions that took place in the US last year, including the executions of two women? And if the EU is so concerned about human rights, why did it not say one word of censure about the hundreds of prisoners - some of whom are Europeans - who the US is holding, in violation of the most basic norms of human rights, in the naval base in Guantanamo, against the wishes of the Cuban government and people? Four measures have been announced against Cuba by the EU: 1. limit bilateral high-level government visits. In the last five years not one EU head of state or government has visited Cuba. In 2002 alone, 63 high-level delegations from the rest of the world visited Cuba, including 24 heads of state or government and 17 foreign ministers. 2. reduce the participation of member states in cultural events. The EU, which prides itself on its cultural history, should be ashamed of this measure. To make artists and intellectuals, both European and Cuban, and the people who benefit from cultural exchanges, into the particular victims of aggression is such a reactionary measure that it seems inconceivable in the 21st century. 3. to invite Cuban dissidents to national holiday celebrations. This decision, which will, to all intents and purposes, put the embassies of the EU member countries at the service of the US Interests Section's subversive work, formalises the EU's intention of defying the Cuban people, their laws and institutions. 4. re-examine the European Union's Common Position on Cuba. This is Mr Aznar and the Spanish government's way of announcing, from this moment on, its hopes of making the wording of the so-called Common Position on Cuba tougher. The Position was imposed by Spain on the rest of the EU in 1996. Aznar has repeatedly proposed that the EU cut credit to and cooperation with Cuba and raise the level of dialogue with the "dissidents". The EU's decision to join in with the US aggressive policy against Cuba has been welcomed with great joy and loud applause not only by the US government, whose secretary of state said: "The United States will be able to join with the European Union in a common strategy against Cuba", but also by the mercenaries who are still working for the US government inside Cuba and by the spokespeople of the Miami terrorist groups. The Cuban Libraries Solidarity Group (CLSG) reminds the EU that Cuba has won the legal right, recognised by international law, to decide for itself, exercising its full sovereignty and with no foreign interference, the economic, political and social system which best suits its people. The CLSG calls on the EU to withdraw its recent measures against Cuba and to reconsider its Common Position on Cuba.
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