First of all, I would like to tackle the issue of political prisoners in Cuba. At the beginning of my presentation, I said we must analyze the human rights situation in Cuba in light of the Cuban-American conflict. The human rights situation has always been used by the United States as an argument to justify its Cuban policy. They have always cast Cuba as a totalitarian State that suppresses human rights. As a result, the Cubans who oppose the Castro regime become political prisoners.
Are there any political prisoners? I believe so, in so far as there are people who have committed offences that have destabilized the political regime, according to the Cuban government.
We would have to refer, for example, to the report that Cuba presented when the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention travelled to that country. They visited Cuba in order to examine the findings in that committee's report.
Is Cuba acting in accordance with international standards? That is what we want to know, is it not? In so far as these political prisoners have had fair trials, have been represented by lawyers and have been punished according to Cuban law or according to the Criminal Code section that define the activities of these prisoners, I would say that officially speaking, the State is acting in accordance with its laws. Now, we must take all of these subjective issues into consideration.
When I read all these reports concerning the political prisoners... Furthermore, I would like to draw your attention to the diversity of arguments, the abundance of reports dealing with this issue. Personally, I am somewhat confused, because each organization is putting forward arguments that are sometimes different and sometimes contradictory. It is somewhat difficult to see one's way clearly through this, but there are clearly subjective issues. There are obviously prisoners who are maintaining their innocence. They say they are innocent and that they did not act against the security of the State. On the other hand, we have a trial process, witnesses and even, apparently, employees of the State that have infiltrated these movements to see what was going on there. They gave testimony. There are therefore subjective issues that must be taken into account.
I enjoy drawing comparisons and looking at things from different perspectives. Here in Canada, and in the United States, there are political prisoners. In the United States in particular there are many political prisoners. The situation of political prisoners is complicated. We must be very careful when we attempt to analyze the situation with political prisoners in Cuba.