"The Cuban regime repression increases as the European Union gives oxygen '

"The Cuban regime repression increases as the European Union gives oxygen '


germán pachecogpachecv / madrid

Día 10/05/2014 - 01.09h

The spokesman for the Christian Liberation Movement, Regis Iglesias said on the anniversary of the Varela Project that Brussels 'democratic principles should take precedence over economic interests'


This May 10 are met twelve years of the presentation of the Varela Project, proposed bill by the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), to the National Assembly of Cuba. This popular initiative, which proposes changes on freedom of expression and association, the expansion of economic rights, release of political prisoners and a new electoral law was rejected by the Castro regime.
Cuba's Constitution provides the possibility for citizens to submit bills if ten thousand signatures endorse the proposal are presented. However, the Government's response was to discredit the initiative and imprison 75 opponents of the regime, in what became known as the Black Spring.


"Forty managers of the various committees that worked on the project went to prison in 2003. It was an escalation of repression unprecedented four decades of dictatorship," he told ABC Regis Iglesias, spokeswoman MCL and one of the organizers of the project throughout the country, which in 2010 moved to Spain after the mediation of the Cuban Catholic Church.

"Deep reforms are needed, no" fraud changes "»

Iglesias said that Varela Project proposals are still alive in the Cuban democracy movement, both inside and outside the island. "In Cuba many people want things to change. Profound reforms and not "fraud changes" are needed and not what the regime has tried to sell for the last five years. The policy of repression, imprisonment, torture and murder has continued."

In this respect, the Cuban dissident is critical of the approach shown by the European Union to the Government of Havana for the sake of a possible partnership agreement. "While the Cuban regime increases repression Europe shows interest in giving oxygen." Similarly, he says, the Twenty-eight should count with the opposers in Cuba at the time of establishing a dialogue, because he believes "that democratic principles should take precedence over economic interests."

Since the death of the founder of the movement, Oswaldo Paya, in a questionable accident, Regis Iglesias has tried unsuccessfully to return to the island to promote democracy. "Today more than ever necessary to continue the work we began with the Varela Project and citizens committees remain active despite the threats and intimidation of the Communist government."