SPANISH POLDIR ON CFE, CUBA, ALLIANCE OF CIVILIZATIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 001144

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/11/2017
TAGS: PREL PHUM KCFE KOSCE CU SP
SUBJECT: SPANISH POLDIR ON CFE, CUBA, ALLIANCE OF
CIVILIZATIONS

REF: A. STATE 75239

B. STATE 77371

C. MADRID 1099

D. HAVANA 539

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Classified By: DCM Hugo Llorens for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: The DCM met with Spanish MFA Political
Director Rafael Dezcallar June 7 to discuss the need for
unity at next week's extraordinary CFE Treaty conference in
Vienna. Dezcallar reiterated Spain's strong commitment to
NATO and expressed concern at the tone of Putin's recent
rhetoric. Dezcallar also took the opportunity to provide a
readout of his recent trip to Cuba to participate in the
Spain-Cuba bilateral dialogue on human rights, which took
place May 29-30 in Havana. He said the trip was generally
positive, and he expected the results to bear out the
correctness of Spain's policy of engagement. The DCM told
Dezcallar that the U.S. strongly disagreed with Spain's
approach and was skeptical that Spain's engagement would
produce tangible results - an appreciable increase in
democracy in Cuba - and not merely a legitimation of Castro
II. Dezcallar asked whether the U.S. would be able to
provide a contribution to the Alliance of Civilizations as
had previously been discussed by the Secretary and FM
Moratinos. Finally, he expressed interest in a trip to
Washington, perhaps in July, following the success of the
Secretary's visit. END SUMMARY.

SIPDIS


2. (C) The DCM met with Spanish MFA Political Director
Rafael Dezcallar on June 7 to emphasize the need for Alliance
unity at next week's CFE Treaty conference (refs A-C). DCM
told Dezcallar that the U.S. would seek to assist the Russian
Federation in fulfilling the Istanbul Commitments but would
not waver in conditioning A/CFE ratification on fulfillment
of those commitments. The U.S. was taking Russian President
Putin and FM Lavrov's comments seriously and was alarmed by
the tone of Russia's preparatory work for the conference.
Dezcallar responded that Spain also was alarmed by Putin's
recent comments, and he reiterated Spain's commitment to NATO
and to unity at the CFE treaty, thanking DCM for the
non-paper on a possible response to the Russian draft Final
Document.


3. (C) The DCM said that the Secretary had expressed great
satisfaction with her trip and the substantive agenda, of
which the Cuban aspect was only one part of the overall
successful visit. Dezcallar agreed and noted that it was no
surprise to him that some Spanish media outlets had chosen to
highlight the differences on Cuba rather than the overall
success of the visit. In this respect, the Secretary's
public critique on Cuba had opened the government to
criticism on a visit that was intended to show the
normalization of the bilateral relationship. The DCM
responded that the Secretary felt very strongly about the
Cuba issue and wanted to make sure that Spain's leaders
understood the U.S. position.

//HUMAN RIGHTS DIALOGUE WITH CUBA//


4. (C) Dezcallar then gave a more detailed readout of his
late May trip to Cuba for the first bilateral human rights
dialogue with the Cuban government. He stressed that this
was the first time the Cuban government had ever agreed to a
dialogue on Cuban internal human rights policy, saying "this
was no small accomplishment." He sought to draw a
distinction between this effort and previous engagement
between former Spanish President Felipe Gonzalez and Fidel by
saying that Gonzalez' effort had been a one-off, whereas the
Spaniards were conducting this process via a systematic,
consistent and protracted dialogue according to international
standards.

//DISSIDENTS AND POLITICAL PRISONERS//


5. (C) He said that the Spanish had stressed to the Cubans
the need for freedom of movement and association for

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dissidents and the need for dissidents to be able to travel
internationally. The Spanish delegation told the Cubans that
they needed to stop regarding dissidents as delinquents and
recognize them as legitimate opinion-holders. They also told
the Cubans that positive human rights developments would have
positive consequences for Cuba's relationship with the EU.


6. (C) On political prisoners, Dezcallar said that the
Spanish delegation read off a list of political prisoners,
some from Amnesty and Human Rights Watch and other sources,
and called for their release. He said that a sign of Cuba's
interest was the fact that they took down all of the names in
question rather than simply ignoring the exercise. The
Spanish also said that the ICRC should get unlimited access
to Cuban prisons immediately.


7. (C) To the Spaniards' surprise, the Cubans took them to
visit three different prison facilities, as reported in ref

D. Dezcallar told the DCM that he was not really qualified
to judge the conditions at the prison facilities, but he
acknowledged that the conditions were not good. He
emphasized with the Cubans that it was not the Spanish who
should be seeing these facilities but international experts.
The DCM added that international experts would have wanted to
see some of the notorious maximum security facilities on the
island, not three low security facilities in Havana.
Dezcallar said that he made that point as well. The Cubans
told Dezcallar that if the EU COLAT and discussions on the
Common Position went well, then Cuba might be amenable to
receiving visits from UN special rapporteurs and UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights Chanet.

//LEGAL REFORM//


8. (C) Dezcallar said that the Spanish told the Cubans that
their legal framework, particularly "Law 88", the law of
penal processing, and certain other elements of their penal
code, were not in line with international norms and should be
changed. The Spanish offered to organize a conference
between Spanish legal experts and Cuban judiciary officials
to discuss possible reforms.

//BLAME U.S. ON INTERNET ACCESS//


9. (C) Dezcallar also said that the Spanish pressed the
Cubans on internet access. The Cubans replied that Havana
does have internet cafes, but the Spanish stressed that they
were very few and prohibitively expensive for the average
Cuban. At this point the Cubans suggested that they would
love to provide cheap and fast internet access, but the U.S.
was blocking their access to bandwidth. The DCM told
Dezcallar that we understood this to be false and would
follow up with Washington immediately for a clarification.

//TIMELINE FOR RESULTS?//


10. (C) The DCM conveyed his doubt about whether this
process would succeed and asked whether the Spanish had a
time horizon at which point they would be able to evaluate
whether their efforts were achieving any tangible improvement
of freedom in Cuba. Dezcallar bristled, responding that
Spain's strategy at least had the advantage that all other
tactics had failed to produce any tangible improvement of
freedom in Cuba. According to Dezcallar, if external
isolation and pressure would ever have produced a change
within Cuba, it would have happened last summer when Fidel
first surrendered power. He said that the GOS would keep
their process completely transparent and would continue to
engage with the USG on its efforts, but they were absolutely
convinced of the correctness of their policy. He said that
the Raul Castro regime recognizes that it will not be able to
sustain the status quo and that the historical moment has
changed from Fidel's era.


11. (C) The DCM noted Spain's effort to change the EU Common
Position and lift restrictive measures on Cuba, and he said
that this would represent the abandonment of European

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commitment to democracy in Cuba. The DCM emphasized that the
USG would continue to press not just Spain but all EU members
to maintain pressure on Cuba. Dezcallar replied that the
measures were already suspended, and he thought that they
would be eliminated. Dezcallar said Spain recognizes that
Cuba is a national security issue for the U.S., but he said
the U.S. should consider what kind of change in Cuba would be
best for U.S. security. He noted the Secretary's admonition
that the Raul Castro regime must not be legitimated, and he
countered that the only people who could legitimate the Raul
regime were the Cubans themselves. Nobody is under any
illusions about who Raul Castro is and what his regime has
represented, he said. The Spanish presence in the island was
not to give legitimacy to Raul but to try to help the Cuban
people. The DCM pointed out that Spain's engagement with a
dictatorship would not reflect well on the human rights
policies of Spain and the entire EU. Dezcallar again
responded that nothing else had worked so far in Cuba. The
DCM noted that clearly the U.S. and Spain had serious
differences on the issue, but he thanked Dezcallar for the
readout and said he hoped that the Spanish would continue to
keep the U.S. in the loop.

//ALLIANCE OF CIVILIZATIONS, TRIP TO DC//


12. (C) Dezcallar then briefly touched on the Alliance of
Civilizations and asked whether the USG had made any
decisions about a contribution to fund a program, as per the
"gentleman's agreement" between the two governments after
Spain's one million dollar contribution to the Foundation for
the Future. Dezcallar said that the Alliance would be
organizing a forum shortly to unveil the work plan and set in
motion some projects, and he suggested that this would be a
good opportunity for the U.S. to announce its contribution.
(NOTE: The USG has said it would look to support a project
once specific project proposals are identified by the work
plan. END NOTE.)


13. (C) Lastly, Dezcallar said that he hoped to make a visit
to Washington in July, "in the wake of the Secretary's visit"
in order to share the GOS' evolving perspectives on
Afghanistan, Iran, Kosovo, Darfur and other issues. The DCM
said this was an excellent idea and asked Dezcallar for dates
as soon as possible so that EUR could set up a excellent
high-level program for him.

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