Sweden’s Wake-Up Call on Cuba
By Logan Williams
On August 24, 2023, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström made some bold statements about the island nation of Cuba. In an official response to an interrogatory put forth by Swedish Parliamentarian Markus Wiechel, inquiring as to the Swedish Foreign Ministry's existing efforts to advocate for the release of Cuban political prisoners, the Foreign Minister said, “Sweden always works for democratic values and human rights. Cuba is no exception. It can be stated that the situation in [Cuba], especially with regard to political prisoners, has not improved, despite the efforts of both Sweden and the European Union to promote democracy and human rights in the country.”
As anyone with any experience studying the Cuban problem will tell you, what is remarkable about Cuba is its ability to resist change. Castroist ideology still underpins the Cuban regime today, nearly sixty-five years after the culmination of the 1959 Revolution and fifteen years after the end of Fidel Castro’s presidency.
Across the Western world, the intellectual Left has popularized a push for engagement with the Cuban regime. This position has newfound life as of late due to the Wall Street Journal's revelations about China's increasing presence on the island. However, the academics and politicians espousing their support for engagement are turning a blind eye to the costs that this strategy will have for the Cuban people.
This ignorance is why Billström’s words are crucial for policymakers around the world—especially within the United States, where this debate rages on with particular zeal—to internalize. The Swedish Foreign Minister is admitting that despite concerted efforts spanning three-and-a-half decades, the European Union (EU) has utterly failed to secure the slightest bit of change in Cuba.
As of 2019, the EU was Cuba's top trading partner for both imports and exports. It was also Cuba’s top development partner and source of foreign investment. In 2019, a quarter of all tourists visiting Cuba, which relies on its tourism sector for income, were from the EU. Despite this robust relationship, Cuba has stubbornly refused to liberalize. As the United States' historical efforts to encourage liberalization in Cuba have demonstrated, engagement will not succeed when rogue states remain motivated by an ideology antithetical to the principles of liberalism. The EU's fallibility on the Cuban issue offers further proof.
Billström also mentioned that in November 2023, a human rights discussion will take place between the EU’s Special Representative for Human Rights, Eamon Gilmore, and members of the Cuban regime. However, the EU’s record on liberalization in Cuba is far from steadfast and doesn’t fill me—or the Cuban people—with much hope.
In 2016, in a stunning example of appeasement of a despotic regime, the EU opted to end the “common position” policy on Cuba. This policy stated that the EU’s primary object regarding its engagement with Cuba was to encourage a nonviolent transition toward democratic governance on the island, liberal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and elevated economic and living conditions for the Cuban people. This “common position” also predicated "[the EU’s] full cooperation with Cuba” upon these “improvements in human rights and political freedom.” The EU's abandonment of its human rights-centric Cuba policy sent a clear message to Cuba’s despots: European money will continue to flow across the Atlantic regardless of the human rights conditions on the island.
Additionally, in May 2023, the EU's High Representative, Josep Borrell, embarked on a four-day trip to Cuba. During this trip, Borrell committed the EU to a relationship of “mutual respect” with the Cuban dictatorship, and he stated in regards to future EU human rights missions to the island that the EU “has neither the capacity nor the will to impose changes in Cuba.” Borrell was quite interested, however, in the profitability of Cuba’s so-called “emerging enterprises.” Borrell’s disregard for the earnest cries of human rights organizations around the world in favor of growing business ties with the dictatorship has forever placed Josep Borrell and the EU on the “list of disappointments.”
Although Borrell did not use his May 2023 trip to Cuba to condition amicable Cuban-EU relations on Cuba respecting human rights, he did urge Cuba to take a more responsible position on the Russian war in Ukraine. He made this request in good faith due to the EU’s substantial relationship with Cuba, a relationship that is crucial to sustaining the island’s regime, and he justified this pressure by pointing to the enhanced leadership role that Cuba has attained as president of the G77.
It was the equivalent of whistling past the graveyard.
Since the inception of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Cuban regime has been engaged in simultaneous diplomatic and propaganda efforts to support Russian aggression.
One week prior to Borrell’s arrival in Cuba, a high-ranking Belarusian military official tweeted on May 18, 2023 that Cuban military personnel would carry out military training in Belarus. On May 24, 2023, Havana voted against the World Health Organization resolution condemning Russian attacks on Ukrainian health systems. It was one of nine "no'' votes against the Europe-backed resolution. The other eight “no” votes were as follows: Algeria, Belarus, People’s Republic of China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos), Nicaragua, Russian Federation, and Syrian Arab Republic (Syria.) So, as they say, Cuba was in “good company,” voting in line with some of the world’s other serial human rights abusers. On the same day, Russian media reported that Cuban contract soldiers had joined Russian military units in their brutal war on Ukraine.
Did the Cuban government change its tune following Borrell’s visit? Of course not.
On May 30, 2023, Cuban President Diaz-Canel appeared on the Spanish-language version of Russia Today, a Russian state-owned media network, to reiterate Cuba's "unconditional" support for Russia and condemn NATO’s expansion. Diaz-Canel also advocated for a “move away from the dollar.” China, Russia, and other rogue states often use this policy prerogative as a method of frustrating the West’s attempts at levying economic sanctions against global bad-actors.
Ideally, Billström’s “discovery” that the Cuban regime is, indeed, ruthlessly tyrannical would catalyze the EU to reinvigorate a human rights-oriented Cuba policy.
What would such a policy look like, you ask? It would begin with the West adopting a strict policy of containment of the Cuban regime. The first step would be levying sanctions against Venezuela – a shell-state that has been occupied by Cuba and which provides Cuba with a source of income through its fossil fuel revenues – for its many crimes against the global community, such as its participation in drug smuggling and its state sponsorship of terrorism.
The next step would be for Western states to prevent their citizens from personally financing the torture and repression of a people crying out for freedom, by severing the regime’s ties to its two external monetary lifelines: tourism and remittances. The United States must enforce its existing policies against providing financial support to the Cuban dictatorship. The EU must follow the United States’ lead by reviving its own human rights-oriented “common position” policy, which would predicate the continuation of the EU’s financial engagement upon the Cuban regime demonstrating substantial progress towards real human rights reforms. Such an act which would demonstrate the West’s unwavering commitment to the ideals of liberalism, as well as to ensuring that human rights are protected around the globe.
Unfortunately, I am not holding out hope. I expect the West to continue paying lip service to the cause of liberalism while pursuing policies which are inimical to the furthering of human rights on the island. If I am correct, the Cuban people will continue to suffer from the West’s inaction.
Logan Williams is a first-generation student at the University of Connecticut studying history with concentrations in Global Affairs and Environmental Studies. As a student, he has pursued research regarding Ukrainian history and national identity, hegemonic theory, the Cold War, and international development/liberalization processes. For five years, he worked on Republican campaigns at the local and state levels before becoming disheartened by the ever-growing populism, bigotry, isolationism, and anti-intellectualism within the Republican Party. He also worked on individual legislative priorities, served as the political director of the Connecticut Log Cabin Republicans, and served on the executive board of the Connecticut Federation of College Republicans before choosing to leave the Republican Party. He is now beginning a career in foreign policy research at The Center for a Free Cuba, a Washington-based human rights organization dedicated to monitoring human rights abuses within Cuba and to advocating for Cuba’s eventual liberalization.
