Spanish FM shuns dissidents during Cuba visit

Spain's foreign minister met with Cuban leader Raul Castro and other government leaders Monday during an official visit that has caused a stir for who he wouldn't see: top political opposition leaders on the island.

Miguel Angel Moratinos met for nearly three hours with Castro at Havana's convention center, discussing human rights and winning a promise from the Cuban leader to repay nearly $300 million Cuba owes to Spanish companies that do business in the country. The Spanish diplomat declared himself "satisfied" with the talks.

"We have achieved our objectives," he said.

Moratinos passed on a chance to visit dissidents, political activists, independent Cuban journalists or members of Havana-based human rights organizations, a break with the past when Spanish leaders often held such meetings and enraged the Cuban government.

Critics back home claimed he had stayed away for fear of angering President Castro - and that he had little to show for the effort. But that was before the sit-down with the Cuban head of state, which had not been announced beforehand by either side.

Of his decision to skip talks with the dissidents, Moratinos said he had "not come to Cuba to meet with any particular segment of Cuban society."

Moratinos also held brief discussions with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. The Spanish diplomat arrived Saturday for a visit that stretched into Monday evening, but included just one day of work activities.

"Today, thanks to a new political reality between Cuba and Spain, we have the chance to support and foster efforts at cooperation," Moratinos said, adding later that all relations between the countries were "normalized."

Madrid and Havana had been on testy terms before the trip. The visit was all but ignored on Monday in Cuba's official press - highly unusual in a country where the resumes and speeches of even low-level guests from tiny or far away nations are reprinted verbatim.

News of his visit wasn't in any of the main newspapers Monday, though it was carried on the Web site of the government-run National News Agency and that dispatch eventually was posted on Cubadebate, an Internet page where Fidel Castro publishes opinion columns.

Economist Martha Beatriz Roque, who was among 75 leading dissidents imprisoned as part of a government crackdown in 2003, said Monday that police have stepped up harassment in recent days to ensure activists stay out of sight during Moratinos' visit.

"Let him come here so he can see what real repression is," she said by phone Monday, speaking from the home of another dissident, Vladimiro Roca, a former fighter pilot and son of a legendary communist leader who has become an outspoken critic of the communist system.

Spain's moderate socialist government assumes the revolving European Union presidency on Jan. 1, putting its policy toward Cuba under the spotlight. Moratinos promised Monday to use that post to "elevate relations" between the EU and the island. In August, several European diplomatic missions in Cuba irked the government by visiting the wife of a jailed dissident physician.

Jorge Moragas, a spokesman for Spain's conservative Popular Party said in a radio interview that Cuba's communist system "falls far short of democratic standards."

"The head of Spanish diplomacy is acting with profound irresponsibility," he said.

Moratinos counters that he is holding frank human rights discussions with Cuban officials.

Spanish-Cuban relations have remained chilly since former conservative Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar helped prompt a decision by the EU to impose sanctions on Cuba in 2003, after the 75 dissidents were rounded up on rather dubious charges of working with the United States to undermine the Cuban government.

Moratinos visited in 2007, however, and the EU voted to lift sanctions last summer. This year, Spain plans to donate euro34 million ($50.6 million) to Cuban projects.

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Associated Press writer Jorge Sainz contributed to this report from Madrid.