Relevant quotes from Cuba and Sweden

There have been some memorable quotes in El Nuevo Herald over the past few days.

A few days ago, it was reported that Cuba is not allowing dissidents to receive monies transferred to them from American sources. I wonder what Cuba is doing with the money -- surely they are not returning it back to CANF...

So the Cuban government won't allow us to send money to anyone who has the courage to disagree with them... still want to lift remittances? We'll have to discourage our relatives from speaking out in order for them to receive money. How is that going to promote freedom in Cuba?

Anyways, in response to this action, Las Damas de Blanco spoke out strongly:

"Si vamos a hablar de terrorismo, el primer terrorista es el gobierno cubano...'', añadió Soler, cuyo esposo Angel Moya cumple sentencia de 20 años

"If [the Cuban government] is going to talk about terrorism, the first terrorist is the Cuban government." - Berta Soler, whose husband Angel Moya is serving a 20 year prison sentence

Also of note this week is the EU's upcoming decision on whether or not to end sanctions on Cuba. Spain and Portugal have been pushing the EU to lift the sanctions imposed following the Black Spring of 2003. The formal lifting would require unanimous approval of the 27 countries, but the Czech Republic and Sweden are determined to block it. The vote was to take place on Monday, but Germany has asked for more time to debate the issue, so the decision has been postponed to Thursday.

In discussing the issue, the Swedish Foreign Minister issued some words that should be heard by all those who think that dialogue with Cuba will lead to change. Unfortunately, 99% of those people will never read this:

El ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Suecia, Carl Bildt, dijo que Cuba ni siquiera parece interesada en forjar lazos más fuertes, lo que incluiría conversaciones sobre derechos y reformas.

"No hemos visto muchos cambios en Cuba'', dijo Bildt. "El año pasado le hicimos una oferta a los cubanos para iniciar un diálogo y los cubanos nos cerraron la puerta en la cara ... Ellos no estaban interesados en un diálogo si tenían que discutir cosas incómodas, como democracia y derechos humanos''.

Sweden's Minister of Foreign Relations, Carl Bildt, said that Cuba doesn't even seem interested in forming stronger ties, which would include conversations on human rights and reforms.

"We haven't seen many changes in Cuba," said Bildt. "Last year we made Cuba an offer to initiate dialogue and Cuba shut the door in our face... They weren't interested in dialogue if they had to discuss uncomfortable subjects, such as democracy and human rights."

Posted by Monica at June 17, 2008 02:48 AM

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