Enlightened EU Lawmakers

Courtesy of EFE via Net For Cuba:

EU Lawmakers Say Dialogue with Cuba Ineffectual

(c) Copyright 2005. EFE News Service. All rights reserved.

Brussels, Sep 2 (EFE).- Two members of the European Parliament on Friday criticized the European policy of engaging in dialogue with the Cuban government, a strategy they contend is not producing the desired results.

Italians Emma Bonino and Marco Pannella said in a communique that, despite the Spanish government's efforts to foster a constructive dialogue with Fidel Castro's regime, the latter has freed "only 14 of the 75 dissidents jailed in April 2003, while several thousand remain in Cuban prisons for exercising freedom of speech and conscience."

The 75 mostly pro-democracy activists and independent journalists were given prison terms of up to 28 years in 2003 on charges of conspiring against Castro's government.

The two members of Italy's Transnational Radical Party said the May 20 rally in Havana of the independent civic coalition Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba - considered to be the fruit of the policy of dialogue - was marred by the expulsion of several European lawmakers and journalists who tried to attend the gathering.

According to Bonino and Pannella, "following this meeting, the violations of fundamental rights have returned on a large scale."

They said this has included constant harassment of domestic political dissidents, denounced by non-government organizations like Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.

Pannella and Bonino, a former EU commissioner, called on the Council of the European Union and the European Commission to spell out the "initiatives they really are going to take considering the the EU does not have the 'room for maneuver' it claims to have with Castro."

EFE
Received from M.A.R. POR CUBA (www.marporcuba.org)