Political polarization marks the debate in Congress on human rights in Cuba

Eduardo González The Foreign Affairs Committee of Congress approved on Wednesday, by weighted vote, a non-binding resolution from the People's Parliamentary Group urging the Government to denounce the political repression, the lack of freedoms, and the “structural failure” of “the Cuban dictatorship” before “the relevant international forums, including the United Nations, the European Union, and the Ibero-American summits,” and to compile “a list of political prisoners with Spanish nationality in Cuba or those requiring urgent consular, medical, or humanitarian assistance.” The vote resulted in 18 votes in favor, with the support of the PP and Vox, and 18 against, primarily from the PSOE and Sumar parties, with one abstention. The second vote yielded the same result, and ultimately, the presiding officers decided to award the victory to the "yes" vote, applying the so-called "weighted vote," whereby each spokesperson's vote is equivalent to the number of members in their respective parliamentary group. PP During the debate, Belén Hoyo, of the People's Party (PP), stated that "in Cuba, poverty is real, repression is real, political prisoners are real, the lack of freedom is real, mass emigration is real, the shortage of medicine is real, the blackouts are real," but she warned that "the question is not what is happening in Cuba, the question is why, after more than six decades, there are still those who justify what is happening there, and that is where the double standard comes in." "This is a debate about the democratic consistency of this House," she continued. "Are you willing to condemn a dictatorship when that dictatorship claims to share your ideology, or when your democratic principles depend on who oppresses and who oppresses? Cuba is a dictatorship, and anyone who still has difficulty pronouncing this word has a political and moral problem," she declared. According to Hoyo, this initiative “demands fundamental things: it demands the immediate, unconditional, and full release of all political prisoners; it demands condemning the systematic repression of the Castro regime; it demands greater involvement from the European Union and our international allies,” and “it demands that Spain once again adopt a foreign policy consistent with the democratic values it claims to defend.” “The government of Pedro Sánchez has maintained a complacent position toward various authoritarian regimes in recent years, not only the Cuban one, and Spaniards have the right to ask themselves whether certain ideological affinities, personal relationships, or economic interests have outweighed the defense of democracy and human rights,” he warned. “Spain must stand with its allied democracies in defense of an immediate, peaceful, orderly, and fully democratic transition in Cuba,” she added. PSOE For her part, Rafaela Romero, of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), asserted that, “obviously, the Spanish Government has, over the years, expressed its opposition to the violation of political rights and fundamental freedoms perpetrated by the regime against the Cuban people,” but announced that her party would not support this initiative “because it is an incomplete, unbalanced, biased text, entirely in line with a narrative that is not true.” “The defense of human rights is not that it cannot be selective, but rather that it cannot be used as an ideological weapon against inconvenient governments, because it requires denouncing all human rights violations, regardless of their origin, and also defending the right of peoples to decide their future without external interference or collective punishment,” she continued. Instead, she denounced, this initiative “instrumentalizes human rights for ideological propaganda.” “We will not accept lessons from the Popular Party on democracy and freedoms when their proposal only addresses what fits their narrative and deliberately omits the impact of an economic blockade that has punished the Cuban people for more than 60 years and has been repeatedly rejected by the international community,” she stated. “This initiative once again demonstrates the right wing’s impoverished conception of democracy, a democracy understood as a supermarket where one chooses which rights are convenient to defend and which freedoms are convenient to highlight, while ignoring those that affect the majority of society,” she insisted. Vox On behalf of Vox, José María Sánchez García stated that “Sumar and Podemos, despite what they may say, still believe that what is happening in Cuba, from a political standpoint, is the best thing that could happen to any country in the world” because “they remain Marxists, Leninists, some even Trotskyists” and “justify this regime of repression based on ideological principles that they continue to uphold, in my opinion, in an anachronistic way.” “Then there is the Socialist Party, which is a more moderate party in this regard, not necessarily more intelligent, not necessarily more realistic, but certainly more cunning,” because “it practices and defends its entire foreign policy in terms of what benefits it internally, that is, what it thinks will please its electorate, which today is concentrated among the most leftist voters in the nation,” he denounced. Sumar For his part, Enrique Santiago, of Sumar, stated that the initiative's objective is "to conceal a crime against humanity perpetrated by Trump against ten million inhabitants of Cuba, including imprisoned Cubans and their families." "There is no greater violation of human rights than the economic and energy strangulation to which the Trump Administration is subjecting Cuba," he insisted. "After 60 years of a US blockade and sanctions contrary to international law, condemned unanimously year after year by the United Nations General Assembly, today the People's Party and Vox are acting as servants of the Trump Administration, stabbing a brother nation that is being attacked by the world's greatest power," he denounced. The text, he continued, contains "not a single word about the White House's threats against Spanish companies in Cuba, such as Iberostar and Meliá, which have had to abandon the island to cede their tourism business to whomever the United States decides." “Their visits to the (United States) Embassy are to receive orders from those who are destroying international law and world peace,” asserted Santiago, who asked the Popular Party “not to collaborate with the strategy of using hunger and thirst as a weapon of war against an entire people” and accused the conservative party of “supporting the United States military intervention against our Cuban brothers and sisters.” The approved text The non-binding resolution urges the Government to “condemn the existence of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Cuba, as well as the repression exercised by the Cuban regime against activists, journalists, human rights defenders, family members of dissidents, artists, students, religious figures, and citizens,” and to “demand that the Cuban regime immediately, unconditionally, and with full rights, release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, rejecting any form of partial or conditional release, release subject to house arrest, surveillance, forced exile, or subsequent restriction of civil and/or political liberties.” The statement also calls on the Government to “expressly endorse the Liberation Agreement signed jointly by Cuban civic, opposition, and democratic resistance organizations, as a framework for forging a democratic, peaceful, and orderly exit from the dictatorship,” and to compile, “in coordination with international human rights organizations, a list of political prisoners with Spanish nationality in Cuba, or those requiring urgent consular, medical, or humanitarian assistance.” The text further urges the Government to “denounce in the relevant international forums, including the United Nations, the European Union, and Ibero-American summits, the social, economic, and humanitarian crisis in Cuba resulting from decades of dictatorship, political repression, lack of freedoms, and the structural failure of the model imposed by the regime.” The next Ibero-American Summit will be held in Madrid this November.

Related Content

The Treaty of Friendship with France passes its first hurdle in Congress despite renewed opposition from the PP

Congress calls for the “immediate release” of the two Spaniards imprisoned in Equatorial Guinea

Albares and Sikorski advocate for enhanced cooperation so that progress doesn't depend on "the consensus of the 27"

Congress demands the “immediate and unconditional” release of iranian activist Narges Mohammadi

The Cervantes Institute inaugurates its second permanent presence in Sub-Saharan Africa in Abidjan