Days of the Living Deadtator

Is the new relationship between the Cuban regime and Zapatero’s Spain beginning to BUCkLe?

It could be. Zapatero is beginning to find out that for Castro, Inc., negotiations means that you do things their way and dialogue means you listen.

While at a press conference at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Zapatero was asked about Spain’s support for dissidents and free multi-party elections in Cuba.

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The Spanish socialist Prime Minister, said that he wished Cuba would transition into a system where “participation of the citizenry was a constant” saying that Spain too had suffered a dictatorship and waited for forty years and that Spaniards are passionate about freedom. This statement, of course, compares Franco’s Spain to Castro’s Cuba . AND it had the effect of throwing a bucket of cold, holy water on the same creatures of the night that stormed out of Bush’s General Assembly speech as if they where vampires and “W” had brandished a cross at them from the podium when he said: ''In Cuba, the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing its end,'' ``The Cuban people are ready for their freedom. And as that nation enters a period of transition, the United Nations must insist on free speech, free assembly and, ultimately, free and competitive elections.''

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According to this ABC.es. article, Felipe Pérez Roque met with Spanish foreign minister Ángel Moratinos and expressed his discomfort at Zapatero’s words forcing Moratinos to explain. Moratinos probably explained to his Cuban counterpart that the key to Zapatero’s statement was the part where he emphasized the Cubans had to learn how to “wait” just like Spaniards had waited. Zapatero never said how much longer Cubans needed to “wait” for basic human rights. Maybe he meant another 50 years. It’s only fair to point out that while the Spaniard’s 40 year wait under Franco was no picnic, unlike Cubans, who have already been waiting for Castro’s promised elections for 48 years, they, at least, had food, (after WWII), to go on a picnic and could go on a picnic anywhere in Spain while Cubans can’t.

Interestly, in the Spanish article, is the opinion, that although Spain has offered its hand in friendship to the Cuban regime, even serving as the regime’s intermediary at the EU, the “Castroist authorities are not satisfied. Perhaps, interpreting the new Spanish closeness as a sign of weakness, they are demanding more.” As evidence, they quote Abel Prieto, the Cuban Minister of Culture, (propaganda in the arts), as saying that “relations between the two countries are not yet normalized and that “new steps” need to be taken to make it so”. To my knowledge, Cuba has taken NO steps.

Also of interest-and disbelief from yours truly-is the author’s contention that Zapatero was “dragged” into the current Spanish foreign policy, which he doesn’t “sympathize with in spite of the image created to the contrary” (pulheeez!) by Moratinos who apparently fell for the “Raul the Pragmatic” image that HAS been created here in the States by wishful thinkers and adopted and cultivated by the regime and its minions to suit their purposes.

It looks like Zapatero is starting to realize that dealing with the Castros brings nothing but grief and recriminations ,has no political advantages and is thinking of jettisoning the albatross of the Cuban Deadtator until at least after the Spanish elections next year.