MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cuba on the verge of cutting ties with EU

Cuba warned Thursday in Geneva that the budding rapprochement with the Europe Union “is on the verge of sinking” and asked the Europeans to join Havana in urging a United Nations forum to investigate the situation of detainees at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo.

Havana's resolution on Guantanamo, located on Cuba's Southeast coast but controlled by the United States, was offered just hours after the U.N. Commission on Human Rights approved a U.S.-drafted and European Union-co-sponsored text critical of Cuba's lack of respect for individual liberties.

Reacting to the vote in Geneva, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told a press conference that Cuba "acknowledges no legitimacy to the resolution and will in no way cooperate with this spurious mandate". Mr. Perez Roque added that Havana will continue to deny entry to the island of French jurist named by the U.N. panel several years ago to serve as "rapporteur" for the situation on the Communist-ruled Island.

Mr. Perez Roque criticized strongly the EU's backing for Washington's resolution, calling it confirmation of Europe's adherence "to the aggressive policy of the United States", which jeopardizes the recent normalization of ties between Cuba and the 25-member bloc.

Relations between Brussels and Havana had been frozen since June 2003, when the EU imposed political sanctions on Cuba in response to Fidel Castro's jailing of 75 peaceful dissidents and the execution of three men who tried to hijack a passenger ferry.

The Europeans decided in January to renew their dialogue with Cuba, encouraged by last year's release of 14 members of "the Group of 75" on health grounds, though that still left an estimated 300 political prisoners in the island's jails.

Mr. Perez Roque said Thursday that for the EU to back the United States against Cuba before the U.N. panel amid the newly revived dialogue was "pathetic, capitulatory, servile and hypocritical" on the part of Brussels.

"It's an embarrassment" that the EU cannot formulate a policy of its own toward Cuba, the foreign minister asserted, warning that the relationship between Havana and the Europeans "is on the verge of sinking".

Cuba is asking the U.N. rights commission to launch "an impartial and independent investigation" of the more than 500 terror suspects being held at Guantanamo and to request that the U.S. government authorize U.N. rapporteurs to visit the detention facility. "The European Union knows what it has to do, what it has to rectify, and if it doesn't know that, then it doesn't know a thing" emphasized Mr. Perez Roque.

"We will be alert and anxious to see what they do" he added, insisting that the Cuban proposal offers "an opportunity for the EU to give proof of its ethical coherence."

Mr. Perez Roque finally described the EU role as junior partner to the United States, makes Europe "an economic giant but a dwarf as far as political influence".

The text censuring Cuba was approved at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva by a vote of 21-17 with 15 abstentions.

Besides the United States and the four Latin American countries, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea, among others, voted for the resolution. The representatives from Russia, China, India, Sudan, Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Indonesia and South Africa, among others, voted against.

Latin American countries abstaining from the vote included Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru.

Cuban delegate Juan Antonio Fernandez lashed out at the result of the vote, labelling the resolution "hypocrisy" adding that the decisions of the Geneva-based commission were a "farce".

The commission has censured Cuba every year since 1990, except 1998. The 2004 resolution against Cuba was approved 22-21, with 10 abstentions