Photo: Archivo/RHC

By María Josefina Arce

There are no doubts left, the right wing in the European Parliament has a fixed idea with Cuba. It persists in promoting debates on the human rights situation, under no credible pretexts, which respond to a script to manipulate the issue and give a distorted image of the Cuban reality.

It is striking that our country is the only one in Latin America and the Caribbean that has been the subject of so much discussion in recent months in that body.

And nothing is by chance, everything indicates that the aim is to hinder relations between Cuba and the European Union and return to those times of the so-called Common Position, which promoted in 1996 had an interfering, selective and discriminatory character and responded to the dictates of the United States.

That position was put to an end in 2016 with the signing of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Cuba, which opened a new chapter mutually beneficial for both parties.

But a small group of MEPs returns again and again on old and worn-out pretexts, joining the game of the United States, a country that precisely with its hostile policy towards the Caribbean nation does violate the most elementary human rights of all the Cuban people.

The U.S. blockade that Washington has maintained for almost 60 years against our country constitutes the longest and most serious transgression of citizens' prerogatives.

There is not a Cuban family that has not suffered from the limitations in their daily lives, an important detail that the European right wing does not mention in a timely manner, which also seems to forget the worldwide rejection of that genocidal measure.

However, there are, to refresh your memory, the votes at the UN General Assembly, where last June, for the twenty-ninth time, the lifting of the economic siege, intensified in times of pandemic, was demanded.

And more recently, here in Havana, at the XX Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Agreement, the criminal measure against which the Government is fighting to defend the prerogatives of its people was also denounced.

This is demonstrated by the achievements of the Revolution in all these years, highlighted by international organizations. Cuba is recognized for its advances in health, biotechnology and education, among others.

In fact, Cuba currently has three vaccines against COVID-19, thanks to the tireless work and talent of our scientific community. 

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has pointed out the Caribbean country's leadership in the production of immunosuppressants against the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

It also stands out for ensuring the integral development of children and young people and protecting other vulnerable sectors such as women, the elderly and the disabled.

Cuba guarantees the human rights of every Cuban and, in addition, helps citizens of other countries to have access to health and education, an example of the humanism and solidarity that characterize the Revolution.