The EU must not betray Cuba
By Rosa Maria Payá
Politico
January 4, 2015

Brussels needs to insist on the Cuban people’s right to choose their political system.

After more than a year of negotiations with the Cuban government, the European Union has shown no significant progress beyond statements on commercial issues and the establishment of the basic framework for an agreement.

The Cuban government has played its cards well. It made public part of its talks with the U.S. government, and the already frenetic race to secure “positions” in Cuba went out of control. In the naïve belief, among others, that the biological end of the brothers-in-chief will bring about democracy spontaneously, European and other business people are trying to assure themselves a place on the island “before the Americans get there” — no matter how much money they lose in the process.

I will not dwell on the obvious lack of a market in Cuba, where the people have no purchasing power or democratic resources required to deal with foreign investors because the only legal business partner is the Cuban government. Clearly, foreign investors handpicked as minority partners by a government that controls everything on the island are guaranteed that they will have no competition. But that comes at the risk of losing it all the minute they start to become “inconvenient,” either because they demand to be paid what they’re owed or because the government has found a more interesting — and submissive — partner. Some European investors have even wound up in Cuban prisons, such as Stephen Purvis from Britain.

The truth is that deals with mafias are never win-win. Paradoxically, despite the country’s clearly precarious economic situation, the Cuban government has succeeded in portraying itself as having nothing to lose in its negotiations with the EU. Yet European diplomats would be seen as having failed if they are forced to call off the negotiations and admit that the Cuban government is not ready to give in on anything and therefore does not meet the basic human rights conditions the EU requires of its partners. The pressures on this issue run counter to logic, and so the EU negotiators in the end are more likely to sign any agreement to show results and satisfy economic interests.

The EU requires a human rights clause in the final agreement, which the Cuban government will try to define as if it is meeting the conditions. But if Europe comes to the coherent conclusion that it is Cuba that needs Europe, and not the other way around, it will have the leverage to support democracy and, through that, true peace, progress and stability in Cuba and the region. That is required for a real framework of guarantees for European economic interests.

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Cuba has not had a free and multiparty election in 65 years, and there’s not even a framework for carrying one out now. The space for economic reforms is also very limited because the constitution was illegally amended in 2002 to put the island’s economic, political and social system under the “irrevocable” control of the Communist Party and its monopolistic management. The EU cannot ask for a change in the constitution, but it can support the right of Cubans to choose their own future, and the political and economic systems they want for their country. The opposite is immoral.

There is a non-partisan citizens’ initiative, Cuba Decide (Cuba Decides), for a binding referendum that will allow Cuban citizens to vote on the changes needed to start a transition to democracy. No mater how many cosmetic reforms the government puts in place, a true transition cannot start until Cubans participate fully. The human rights issue must permeate each and every point of any EU agreement with Cuba, and cannot be treated independently of the others. Conditions established by the EU must be measurable and verifiable.

That is why we hope for support for the binding referendum, under conditions that guarantee the transparency of the process and the presence of international observers. It happened in Chile in 1988, with support from the majority of the world.

Neither the EU nor the Barack Obama administration are responsible for fixing Cuba’s problems. But they do have a historical responsibility to take specific steps of effective solidarity with a real transition to democracy. To support the participation and sovereignty of Cuban citizens, instead of the rule of an unelected corporate-military elite that has been in power for 56 years, is in any case the moral option.

Who could oppose the Cuban people’s right to chose?

Rosa María Payá promotes the “Cuba Decides” campaign and is the daughter of the late dissident leader Oswaldo Payá. She Tweets at @RosaMariaPaya.

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