The Prague Democracy & Security Conference held on June 5-6 was organized by human right activist and political leader Natan Sharansky, former president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel and former Prime Minister of Spain José María Aznar. Designed to explore the linkage between the promotion of democracy and the strengthening of security, the conference gathered together activists and dissidents from around the world. 

 

Aznar’s welcoming remarks set the tone for the two-day meeting:

 

 

 

 

The irony is that Spain’s Socialist government has clearly failed the dissidents whom it has the greatest power to help: Those struggling bravely against Cuba’s communist regime. Indeed, most of the 10 points found in the Prague Charter (which was adopted by the conference participants) seem to be at odds with the worldview of Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español – PSOE). Specifically, the PSOE does not seem to grasp the importance of “raising the questions of human rights in all meetings with officials of non-democratic regimes” or “instructing diplomatic emissaries to non-democratic countries to actively and openly seek out meetings with political prisoners and dissidents committed to building free societies through non-violence.”

 

Spain established full cooperation with Cuba when Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos traveled to the island in April of this year. It was the first visit by an EU Foreign Minister since 2003, when the European Union imposed sanctions on Cuba following the executions of three young Cubans who tried to escape the island and the sentencing of 75 dissidents to long prison terms. While Moratinos and his Cuban counterpart Felipe Pérez Roque agreed to explore regular bilateral talks on all political issues including human rights, Moratinos did not talk with any dissidents during his three-day visit. Moreover, the joint communiqué issued after the first of these talks on human rights did not mention political prisoners or ways to improve human rights.

 

Most Cuban dissidents, so upset with Moratinos’ snub, refused a subsequent invitation by the Spanish Embassy to meet with them. The Associated Press quoted former political prisoner Vladimiro Roca, who said, “Moratinos’ visit was a lack of respect, he came to support the tyranny.” The Ladies in White, an organization made up of wives and mothers of political prisoners, and Oscar Espinosa Chepe (one of the 75 arrested dissidents) also did not attend the embassy gathering.

 

There is sufficient reason to doubt any assurances by the PSOE that the party is concerned about human rights in Cuba. While the Czech Republic leads a group of nations in the EU warning against warmer relations with Havana, Zapatero has been pushing for engagement since his election victory in 2004. In October of that year, the Socialist government declared that the EU’s sanctions against Cuba were “ineffective.” It also proposed ending the “symbolic” contacts with Cuban dissidents, presumably so there would be more time for meeting with the government officials who are responsible for the imprisonment of over 300 people found guilty of being “mercenaries” of the United States.

 

Indeed, the PSOE often seems to share the belief that the greatest menace to the peace and stability of the world—and to Spain’s economic interests—is the United States. According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Zapatero’s restoration of the Latin American relationship “has become known as the ‘second colonization’ of South America, and is largely based around economic engagement.” Just as Zapatero was willing to dismiss objections by the United States to sign an arms deal with Venezuela in 2005, he has openly defied the EU’s support of America’s position on Cuba.

 

Thus, it was not surprising when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used her June visit to Madrid to criticize the Socialist government’s cozying up to Castro’s regime. After meeting Moratinos, Rice—who is the highest-level US official to visit Spain since Zapatero’s election victory—said, “I have real doubts about the value of engagement with a regime that is anti-democratic, and that appears to me to be trying to arrange a transition from one anti-democratic regime to another anti-democratic regime.” Rice also expressed concern that the Cuban dissidents “get the right message, which is that the free world stands with them and is not prepared to tolerate an anti-democratic transition in Cuba."

 

The Socialists of course deny that they are promoting a non-democratic succession in Cuba, claiming that engagement is the best policy. Fair enough. But it is possible to support engagement and dissidents at the same time. Furthermore, why isn’t engagement the policy of choice for the Socialists when it comes to dealing with the United States?

 

Even before Zapatero pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq in 2004, he and his party had revealed their antipathy toward the United States. During Spain’s 2003 national holiday parade, opposition leader Zapatero refused to stand up in respect when the American flag was passing by the stand where he was watching the event. When asked to explain his action he said, “Why should I stand up? It was not my flag.” The following year the United States was not invited to the parade, but Cuba and Venezuela were asked to participate. Meanwhile in a 2004 op-ed, Moratinos wrote, “Based on an extravagant and weak strategic design, the American military machine and her stooges entered the Iraqi wasps’ nest like a bull in a china shop.” This negative view of America was reinforced by Spanish Defense Minister José Antonio Alonso right before Rice’s visit to the country. Alonso accused the United States of “indiscriminate bombardment” in Afghanistan, which he said “didn’t win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.”

 

Zapatero is one the very few EU leaders not to have been invited to the White House. If the Prime Minister really wanted to meet President Bush face to face he could have found him this month at the Prague Conference, where Bush joined his friend Aznar in promoting liberty. But as Zapatero has shown with his policies toward Iraq, Cuba and Venezuela (and with his continued hostility to all things American), liberty and freedom are the last things in the world he’d stand up for.