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| Europe |
| The Czechs Remember Life Under Communism |
| 2005-02-12 |
| ...The EU — mainly at the urging of the new Socialist government in Spain — has suspended sanctions that it imposed on Cuba after Castro's brutal crackdown in March 2003. Spain and much of the rest of the EU are eager for things to be hunky-dory again with the regime. But the Czechs won an important concession. You see, after the crackdown, the EU embassies in Havana began to invite oppositionists and dissidents — those still unjailed — to receptions and the like. And the Spain-led EU was on the verge of banning those invitations, as Castro has insisted. The Czechs said no: They said they would use their veto power in the EU Council of Foreign Ministers to prevent any ban on the dissidents. And Spain et al. were forced to back down. I also wish you to note the piece by Vaclav Havel published in the Miami Herald. It appeared before the Czech government won its victory, before the EU was forced to reverse course. Havel speaks of the importance of being related to by diplomats from democratic countries when you're a dissident in a totalitarian country. And he says, One of the strongest and most powerful democratic institutions in the world — the European Union — has no qualms about making a public promise to the Cuban dictatorship that it will reinstitute diplomatic apartheid. The EU's embassies in Havana will now craft their guest lists in accordance with the Cuban government's wishes. The shortsightedness [there's a polite word] of Socialist prime minister José Zapatero of Spain has prevailed. . . . I believe that Havel and his fellow Czechs effectively shamed the EU. (How the Czechs should know the misery of appeasement!) They were the only ones around to do so. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |