The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy has made a statement that would appear to be a criticism of the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship. However, there is not a single condemnation or explicit rejection of the repression unleashed after the peaceful demonstrations, nor of the trials lacking guarantees of due process, nor of the unjust and long sentences, only «concern.»

Given what Josep Borrell expressed on behalf of the European Union, which touches on acceptance, collusion and complicity with the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship, the Liberation Christian Movement, which for over 30 years has suffered the repression of the Communist Party and its armed bodies, including the extrajudicial assassination of its founding leader, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Oswaldo Payá and young Harold Cepero, as well as the imprisonment and exile of many of its members:

  1. Condemns in the strongest terms both the brutal repression unleashed by the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship and the judicial farces and unjust sentences imposed on those who have only exercised their legitimate right to protest.
  2. Categorically rejects the ambiguous and complacent position of the European Union with respect to the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship as well as the tone and language used by the Vice President of the European Commission after more than 60 years of communist repression on the Island.
  3. Recognizes that the European Union is sovereign in its current decision to take as the reference the tyranny imposed on the Island, and even to negotiate and cooperate with the murderers and repressors of the Cuban people, but does not accept, under any circumstances, that the acts of complicity by politicians and entrepreneurs who do business with the dictatorship, as well as their statements, are used to simulate solidarity with the Cuban people. For the Liberation Christian Movement, based on concrete facts and not on the rhetoric of the declarations and speeches, it is clear what the European interests in Cuba are.
  4. Calls on the entire international community to isolate the political-military junta that segregates and represses the Cuban people, as was done last century against the South African apartheid regime and as is being done today, perhaps too late, against a Vladimir Putin out of control and encouraged by the sense of impunity transmitted by the world’s democracies in the face of each of his previous aggressions and his selective extrajudicial assassinations against members of the Russian opposition and civil society. For this we have proposed to the international community Eleven Concrete Actions that could be implemented for the isolation of the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship and in solidarity with the right to freedom of Cubans, among them we specifically ask the European Union to suspend its Cooperation Agreement with Cuba, which in practice has been nothing more than an agreement for the financial and political support of the dictatorship.

The international community must define which side it is going to position itself on. We recall the words of South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, «If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor». Either you support the Cuban people and their aspirations for a life in freedom and with all rights, or you support the continuity of the totalitarian dictatorship that segregates and represses Cubans.

Liberty and Life!

All Cubans, all brothers and now, freedom.

On behalf of the Liberation Christian Movement,

Eduardo Cardet, National Coordinator

Antonio Díaz, General Secretary

Regis Iglesias, Spokesman

Rosa M. Rodríguez, member of the Coordinating Council

Juan F. Medina, member of the Coordinating Council

Minervo L. Chil, member of the Executive Secretariat