The Cuban singer Yotuel Romero, one of the interpreters of the emblematic song Homeland and Life, addressed the leader of the Spanish Popular Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to remind you that the economic interests of large Spanish companies are complicit with the dictatorship and hinder the transition to democracy in Cuba.
"Spain must firmly support the defense of human rights and the transition to democracy in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua,” stated the PP in its recently released electoral program.
The document points out that Spain must continue to promote the system of Ibero-American Summits as the main mechanism of political, economic and social cooperation, and advocates that it play a more active role in facing the challenges of the region.
"Freedom, democracy and respect for human rights are at the base of the Ibero-American community of Nations. We will defend these values in the region and we will give firm support to democratic forces, especially, at this time, in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua," he details.
The right-wing Popular Party is the main political opposition force in Spain that faces the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), whose leader, President Pedro Sanchez summoned general elections for July 23, after the setback suffered by left-wing groups in the recent municipal and regional elections.
The publication in of Yotuel - drawing attention to the role that Spanish multinationals and tour operators play in the financial framework of the dictatorship - is part of the demand of the Cuban civil society, which has been warning for some time about the pillar that these represent for the support of the Cuban totalitarian regime and the consolidation of the power of its ruling leadership.
Previous appeals
In this sense, the Cuban plastic artist expressed himself days ago Hamlet To stage, member of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) retaliated by State Security in Cuba. Interviewed by the Spanish newspaper The country, the activist stressed that “Spanish foreign policy is very careful with the business interests that exist in Cuba.”
In July of last year, the organizations Cubans for Democracy (C4D) and Democrazia e Libertà (ODV) denounced before the Italian Senate the complicity of Spanish and French governments and companies with the Castro dictatorship; financing their survival, despite the very poor record of respect for human rights, evidenced in the repression, trials and sentences against 9/11 protesters.
The Cuban lawyer Julius Rodriguez asked the Italian Senate to promote the application of the Magnitsky Law to those responsible for human rights violations in Cuba; especially members of the military, judicial and political leadership of the regime.
The companies Meliá Hotels International SA and Iberostar Group (Spain) and Bouygues Bâtiment International (France) "finance the survival" of Castroism, said the jurist from C4D, a Spanish non-profit organization made up of lawyers and journalists that works to denounce and prosecute human rights abuses. in Cuba and the European financing that the Cuban regime accesses through different means.
Months before, in March, A group of Cuban exiles demonstrated in front of the Meliá Hotel in New York to demand the release of the political prisoners of the Cuban regime and denounce the complicity of the Spanish network with the single-party military dictatorship whose leadership controls tourism and most of the Cuban economy that generates foreign currency.
“We do not accuse Meliá Hotels International of repressing the Cuban people or imprisoning hundreds of its citizens, including women, children and people in delicate health. "We do accuse Meliá, however, of being an accomplice of the repressors and jailers of the Cuban people," the activists grouped in "Free Cubans around the world" expressed in an open letter.
Addressed to the owners of the chain, the letter appeals to the corporate social responsibility and ethics of a company that supposedly accepts European hiring standards in third countries.
“As representatives of a company that has prospered in a democratic society – based on the basic right of its citizens to express themselves freely – you should be repugnant by the very idea of doing business in countries that deny that right to their own citizens,” they reproached Meliá, which has been doing business for more than 30 years with a dictatorship that prohibits freedom of expression to its citizens.
“From now on we will launch a campaign of protests against your company that will not stop until we see all prisoners of conscience on the island free,” the activists added in their open letter to the Spanish hotel company.
Around the same time, a group of Cuban activists demonstrated alongside prominent Cuban opposition leader Guillermo “Coco” Fariñas - former prisoner of the 'Black Spring' - in front of the Meliá Orlando Hotel, in Florida, to denounce the complicity of the hotel chain with the Havana regime.
Calling for a boycott in case they do not listen to the Cuban people's demands, the activists warned Meliá of the consequences of continuing to profit amid the suffering of citizens, subjected to a single-party military dictatorship that, through GAESA, is a partner of the Spanish hotel company in Cuba.
Prior to this, the C4D association and the Cuban-European Council demanded that the hotel group suspend “any new investment or activity in conjunction with entities” belonging to the Cuban military, responsible for the repression suffered by Cubans who challenge the regime.
In a letter addressed to Meliá Hotels International S.A., these Cuban and European civil society organizations condemned the hotel group's business in Cuba "for violating the human, civil and political rights of Cuban employees and financing the Cuban dictatorship."
Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the Cuban dictatorship
In May 2016, Feijóo traveled to Cuba as president of the Xunta de Galicia, where he was received by the dictator Raul Castro. In their meeting, the Galician leader was in favor of strengthening economic relations between the island and that Spanish autonomous community.
During the hour and a half meeting, Castro and Feijóo talked about the possibility of establishing collaborations in the areas of agri-food, biotechnology, energy, technology, transportation and tourism, the Galician president told the press.
"The president (Castro) told me that he was very interested in doing many things with Galicia. He literally told me: 'since we are starting a new stage with Spain, the things we do with Spain, I would like to do them with Galicia," said Feijóo. .
On a previous visit, in December 2013, the now leader of the PP also met with the youngest of the Castros and gave him an example of the Spanish Transition from Franco's dictatorship to democracy.
"The risk is not in changes but in immobility"Feijóo told Raúl in his interview, while promising Spain's support in a hypothetical process of opening up the island to achieve greater levels of well-being for his compatriots.
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