CUBA. HAVANA: RADICAL PARTY MEMBER BEGONA RODRIGUEZ HAS BEEN ARRESTED, GATHERING OF CONCILIO CUBANO FORBIDDEN, REPRESSION WAVE HITS HUNDREDS OF DISSIDENTS, AND INTERNATIONAL STRAIN INCREASES WHILE DIALOGUE BETWEEN CASTRO AND THE EUROPEAN UNION SEEMS TO COLLAPSE.

Brussels, New York, 26 March 1996. Transnational Radical Party Coordinator for Spain, Begona Rodriguez, has been arrested on Friday 23 by the Cuban police while she was visiting friends from the democratic and anti-Castro opposition in Havana.

Rodriguez arrived in Cuba a few days ago in order to act as representative of the Radical Party to the nation-wide gathering of Concilio Cubano expected for February 24 and prohibited by the Cuban government, which in a repressive crescendo has injailed most of the Concilio Cubano representatives and those independent journalists who pledged to cover the event.

Following the Cuban government' violent action (the shooting down of two airplanes in international waters), the uselessness of European Commissioner Marin's trip to Cuba, and the harsh responses of Castro's regime to any possible democratic development of the Cuban situation, one could ask whether or not it is worth to continue the current dialogue policy the European Union is pursuing on the issue of negotiations about economic aid to that government.

Mr Olivier Dupuis, General Secretary of the Radical Party, has declared on this subject:

"It seems to me that Castro has answered in the most negative possible way to the offer of dialogue by the Europeans: putting the screws on the opposition, halting even the slightest democratic development, and reopening the conflict with the Usa.

At this point, it seems difficult to continue in upholding that Castro is making, even slowly, small steps in the good direction. A theorema which was and still is one of the basics of the politics of the European Union towards Cuba".

Radical Party

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