A brilliant essay by Mary Anastasia O’Grady in El Guolstriyorna (Wall Street Journal)
European aid may seem small, but the Cuban regime is desperate for hard currency
The European left frames itself as a champion of human rights. But when it has to choose between anti-American causes like communist Cuba and the island’s dissidents who are fighting for their freedom, the former takes priority. This explains why, after more than six decades of systemic Cuban repression and obscene levels of corruption in Havana, the European Union still funnels aid to the island. In July it sent €500,000 to Cuba, ostensibly, for “public health.” The European Commission says its “Multiannual Indicative Programme (MIP) for Cuba for 2021-2024 amounts to €91 million.”
Anna Fotyga, a former Polish minister of foreign affairs and a former member of the European Parliament, wrote in the European Conservative last week that it’s “estimated that the EU is currently funding 80 projects in Cuba at a cost of nearly 155 million euros. Every single one of these projects is run by organizations with close ties to the Raul Castro regime.”
Ms. Fotyga’s point is that there is no such thing as an independent nongovernmental organization that receives money from abroad in Cuba. Even international groups like the Pan American Health Organization and Unicef are allied with the government. Sending money to Cuba is sending money to the regime.
European aid undermines the human rights of Cubans. But it also goes against European interests because Havana is helping Russia in its effort to take Ukraine. In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
In the developed-world context, EU aid to Cuba may not seem like much. But bankrupt Havana is desperate for hard currency. First because its economy doesn’t grow. Second because it needs to maintain its repressive police state, at home and in Venezuela where the Cuban agents have infiltrated the military.
European socialists blame the U.S. embargo for Cuban poverty. But all the world (excluding Americans) can put money to work in Cuba. They don’t, because success is unlikely. The entire infrastructure has collapsed. And the regime has a habit of seizing property and throwing foreigners in jail arbitrarily. (See the case of British businessman Stephen Purvis, detailed in an August 2020 Americas column.) Other than trafficking in humans and drugs and exporting refugees, the gangsters running Cuba have no way to generate revenue.
Efforts to justify EU aid on humanitarian grounds don’t hold up. Since the dawn of the Cuban revolution, foreign aid has never made the Cuban people better off. After more than $50 billion in support from the Soviet Union and later from Venezuela, the island is poorer than ever. Brazil’s $1 billion gift to renovate the Port of Mariel looks like another bust.
By financing the Cuban dictatorship the EU is helping its adversary Russia. Between February 2022 and March this year EU support to Ukraine in the fight against the Russian invasion is around €98 billion. But, according to Ms. Fotyga, Cuba has been sending troops to fight for Russia. “At the last estimation, at least 5,000 Cubans have been on the front lines of Putin’s imperialist efforts to expand Russia.”
On the human-rights front the EU aid to Cuba is a disgrace. All the more so after the events of July 11, 2021. That’s when spontaneous antigovernment protests erupted across the island. The world saw the national outpouring of grief, frustration and anger on cellphone videos. Caught off guard, the regime unleashed a furious response that also went viral. Police beat demonstrators in the streets and shoved them into unmarked cars. State security tracked protesters to their homes, where agents burst in and dragged suspects away. Regime goons arbitrarily detained artists, journalists, human-rights activists and ordinary people, including minors.
J11, as social media calls that day, revealed the raw brutality the regime uses to keep the lid on popular discontent. Condemnation came from all quarters. Hollywood apologists went silent. In November the protest anthem “Patria y Vida” won song of the year at the Latin Grammys in Las Vegas.
But the world has moved on. We don’t hear about the 1,100-plus political prisoners, many of whom were taken into custody for participating in the protests. Most of them are faceless patriots. But even well-known leaders who were put behind bars that year have vanished from the conversation. Little is heard about the plight of musician Maykel Osorbo, one of the co-authors of “Patria y Vida,” or performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, a leader of the dissident movement in the poor Havana neighborhood of San Isidro. They are nonconformists whose honesty threatens the Castro family and its allies. Havana needs them to be forgotten.
Dissident leader Daniel Ferrer is in a prison on the other end of the island. The website Ciber Cuba reported on Aug. 22 that the 56-year-old “is in a sealed cell, where hardly any air circulates” and there is no daylight. He “perceives a constant noise within the cell” and suffers “severe headaches, ringing in the ears, bleeding in the mouth, loss of vision, cramps, and momentary paralysis in his hands.”
Europe is financing the torment of these brave men and millions more. As Ms. Fotyga notes, it “is beyond ridiculous” that the European Union “is still funding Cuba.”