In the aftermath of a campaign orchestrated essentially by powerful media outlets, mainly in Europe, that have viciously attacked Cuba, the European parliament has just approved, after a dirty debate, a resolution condemning our country that manipulates feelings, distorts facts, brandishes lies and hides realities.
 

The pretext used was the death of an inmate - first convicted of common crimes and later manipulated by US interests and the internal counterrevolution – who refused to eat despite all warnings and the intervention of Cuban medical specialists.

This unfortunate event cannot be used to condemn Cuba under the allegation that his death could have been prevented. If there is an area in which our country does not need to defend itself with words, because reality is undisputable, it is in its struggle for human life, not only for those born in Cuba but also in other countries. An example of this is the presence of Cuban doctors in Haiti eleven years before last January’s earthquake. This fact is ignored by the mainstream media.

There is great cynicism behind this condemnation. How many children’s lives have been lost in the poor nations due to the decision of the rich countries represented at the European Parliament to avoid honouring their commitments to development aid? Everyone knew that such a decision was a massive death sentence, yet they chose to preserve the level of wastage and ostentation of an eventually suicidal consumerism.

Cubans find it offensive this attempt at teaching us lessons as in Europe immigrants and the unemployed are the victims of repression while here, in neighbors’ meetings - freely and without intermediaries - our people put up their candidates to the municipal elections.

Those who were involved in and/or allowed the air smuggling of detainees, the establishment of illegal prisons and the tortures lack the morality to pass judgment on a brutally blockaded and harassed people.

Such a discriminatory and selective condemnation can only result from the failure of a policy that has unsuccessfully tried to submit a heroic people. Neither the Helms-Burton Act nor the European Common Position -both approved the same year, under similar circumstances and with equal purpose, and both harmful to our sovereignty and national dignity - have any future, since the Cuban people reject impositions, intolerance and pressure in the development of international relations.