HAVANA, Cuba. – Some Spanish political officials still look to America as the colony it was two centuries ago.

This regrettable conclusion is reached through transcended hearings and statements in the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Congress of Deputies, where the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfonso Dastis, was questioned by representatives of Citizens and Popular right-wing parties.

Dastis, who visited Havana last September, withdrew what he presented to the media as his great achievement, the first official trip to Cuba of King Philip the Sixth and Queen Letizia of Spain.

EFE news agency, when approaching the topic, highlighted that Dastis, “although he did not specify dates for this visit of maximum level”, underlined that they worked with “a clear temporal horizon”.

Also El Pais newspaper pointed out on September 6: “The Kings of Spain will travel to Cuba very surely at early January in what is the first official visit of a Spanish monarch to the island” and commented, in addition, Dastis´s intention that the visit is carried out “at the highest level to crown the current good relation”.

Now, Spanish Foreign Minister Dastis Quevedo expressly reversed his statements last year, when he appeared before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Congress of Deputies and answered to the issues, more than questions, by Maura Zorita, from Citizens’ parliamentary group, who said: “We did not like that trip”’, in reference to the projected visit to Cuba.

Although at the beginning of his speech to the Commission, Dastis said he continued to work on “dynamic and structured relations with the island, with which we developed a constructive dialogue”, he marked differences in other matters, such as human rights. The Spanish government traditionally present itself as a paladin on this issue to hide its own shortcomings and impose political interests.

Both when responding to Citizens and to Garcia Hernandez, from the Popular parliamentarian group, the Spanish Chancellor changed his mind. He used to be indecisive, but now he’s not so sure.

Regarding to the voyage of the Spanish royalty to Cuba that the Chancellor wished to happen as soon as possible, these were his words: “It is not that the royal visit was suspended, it never came to be considered, or the preparations for it never began.”

Perhaps for the sake of self-shame, Dastis acknowledged: “Personally I believe that, with Cuba, Spain has enough ties to justify a visit at any level, frankly.”

However, it seems he remembered the goading of the battered right of his country and he thought it was his duty to give us the “enjoyment” of the liberties and rights of the Spaniards — very discussed by the Spanish themselves and not say by the citizens of some autonomous regions.

Perhaps the Spanish Chancellor overlooked that Cubans do not agree very much with this idea of enjoying “freedom” many citizens have even in his own country to be evicted when they cannot pay the rent; all this for exercising their “right” to become unemployed because of the ups and downs of economy, and also of politics. There are many other “liberties”’ and “rights” like these which we are not interested in enjoying.

But as it is to see the mote in somebody´s else eye and not the beam in one´s own, Dastis tread again on the Cuban democracy and our electoral process. “As you know, there are elections planned for spring, and we’ll see what happens next,” and he kept the sentence in abeyance. Some “slight” vagueness for a politician, who, with a pout of contempt and supine ignorance cannot understand what the subject is regarding general elections. It is clear that myopia can manifest in many ways, and it is not always due to pathological causes.

And still he felt with the right to bring out some name of a supposed political prisoner. How would Dastis take it if Cuba asks for certain releases?

In all this there is much to discuss on this topic and if the shoe fits the Spain of PP and other similar ones, they must wear it. Spain does not seem the most appropriate to talk about political prisoners and less
in the current situation…

And in saying and dismissing, the Minister forgot the small detail that even if we are a small island, we have plenty… reasons and principles, which do not respond to conditions or circumstances.

One could ask what condition or circumstance would have to exist according to Dastis, to propitiate the visit of the Spanish head of State to the island, other than the existence of clear bases in the relations of mutual respect, reciprocity, equality and non-interference in the internal affairs. These are basic principles of relations between States, which Cuba fulfils. Another “circumstance” that can imagine the Spanish right for Cuba can live the eternal dream, because it does not know the history of our country.

So, how does the Minister intend to dynamize and structure good relations? Those that, without any doubt, we do have with the peoples of this space of the Iberian Peninsula, to which we are united by genes of origin, but never colonial relations cut by the founding fathers of our nation to the edge of the mambi machete. Generations of Cubans knew how to conquer the independence we have been able to maintain in a sovereign way.