December 13, 2010
A 2004 State Department cable -- revealed by Wikileaks -- expresses U.S. concern about the Spanish government's then-developing policy of excluding dissidents from its embassy events in Havana.
Therefore, the Political Officer (Poloff) at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid contacted Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, Pedro Gomez de Olea, and asked him whether this policy was as a result of a meeting with (and reported blackmail by) the Castro regime's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.
The cable reports:
3. (C) Poloff inquired about the accuracy of news reports that Cuban FM Perez Roque had told Moratinos in New York that noted political prisoner Raul Rivero would not be released if Spain invited dissidents to its national day event, comments which Popular Party politicians denounced as blackmail. Gomez de Olea scoffed, saying that Perez Roque had not made such a statement, but that in fact his comments were even "more insulting" than those reported. He said Perez Roque demanded not only the lifting of EU measures undertaken in the wake of the 2003 GOC crackdown on dissident, but also the full revision of the EU Common Position to remove all European political conditions on improved ties with Cuba.
Ironically, just a few years later, Perez Roque would be purged by the Castro brothers and hasn't been seen or heard from since.
Today, he dreams of foreign embassies in Havana.
Karma stings -- a lesson in itself.
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