The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, met yesterday with Cuban oppositionist Yunior García, one of the promoters of the frustrated ‘Marcha Cívica’ (‘Civic March’) and who arrived last Wednesday in Spain from Cuba with a 90-day visa.
“I have received Yunior García, to whom I have expressed Spain’s commitment to freedoms,” the minister reported on his Twitter account. The meeting took place at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, as seen in the photograph accompanying the Twitter message, among the attendees was the Secretary of State for Ibero-America and the Caribbean, Juan Fernández Trigo, ambassador to Cuba between 2018 and November 2020. The Ministry has not provided further details.
The intention to meet with García had been announced a few hours earlier by Albares himself during his appearance before the Joint Commission for the European Union, in which he also specified that the arrival of the opponent to Spain had been processed “normally, at his own request and with a Spanish visa” issued by the Spanish Consulate in Havana.
The minister reported these details in response to a question from Vox spokesman in Congress, Ivan Espinosa de los Monteros, who again accused the Government of being on the “side of the Castro dictatorship”. “They maintain a lukewarmness that is not sustainable, asking them to return the credentials to Efe, while they remain silent before the regime. We cannot remain silent, otherwise they will become the supporter of the oppressive regime,” he added.
In his rejoinder, Albares recalled that when the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, traveled to Cuba in 2018, he spoke about human rights and met with activists, unlike other leaders who had previously visited the island. He also assured that Spain is the only country that maintains a dialogue on human rights with Cuba and that he himself demanded, during his inauguration ceremony, “freedom of expression and freedom of demonstration” on the island.
Yunior García, playwright and one of the founders of the Archipelago movement that promoted the frustrated ‘Civic March’ of November 15 to demand greater freedoms in Cuba, arrived on Wednesday in Madrid accompanied by his wife, on a commercial flight and with a 90-day visa. The day after his arrival in Spain, he assured during a press conference that he has no intention of requesting political asylum in our country and that his intention is to return to Cuba. He also affirmed that, in his opinion, the Castro regime let him leave the island so that he would not become a symbol of resistance against “the dictatorship”, an expression that the Spanish government has so far eluded to refer to the Cuban political system.
