Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spain’s foreign minister, oversteps the boundaries of his office (emphasis added):
Cuba release ‘could lead to US lifting embargo’
Cuba’s release of all its political prisoners would improve its relations with Europe and United States, and could lead to the lifting of a US embargo, the Spanish foreign minister said on Wednesday.
Miguel Angel Moratinos welcomed as “good news” Cuban parliament chief Ricardo Alarcon’s announcement to AFP on Tuesday that his “government’s wish is to free all the people” not accused of murder.
The Spanish foreign minister said before parliament that such releases would yield “political consequences” for relations with the European Union and the United States, in particular a possible “lifting of the embargo” that Washington has maintained against Cuba since 1962.
Interesting.
It’s either one of two things:
Either Moratinos is speculating,
or,
he’s heard from someone in the Obama administration saying something to that effect.
Either way, it would mean that Moratinos, and/or whoever else, fell for Alarcon’s bs. Notice how Alarcon said, the government’s wish, as if it was outside their control. The only thing keeping political prisoners in Cuban’s prisons is the government Alarcon represents.
Not that Moratinos was not suckered already:
Val:
I dont think Moratinos had planned to make this statement at all, or, at least, so soon after the first prisoner “releases.” What probably forced him to show his cards is the fact that the statements from first wave of Cuban prisoners in Madrid put him and his cohorts between a rock and a hard place.
See, these newly “freed” Cuban were supposed be so thankful for their release from the gulags that they were supposed to kneel to the Spanish government – like good Cubans to the Spanish, historically – and ask the EU to rethink their Cuba policy. This, in turn, could be used by the three amigos – the Catholic Church, Spain and the regime – to point to when lobbying for a change to US/Cuba policy.
As you already know, the expelled prisoners vowed to remain active against Cuba’s dictatorship.
