CUBA has condemned a “a dangerous politicised move” by a group in the European Parliament that it says is turning the body into a pawn of Washington. 
    

The European People’s Party group has tabled a motion for debate on human rights on the socialist island entitled Government crackdown on protests and citizens in Cuba.

It refers to the US-funded instability on the socialist island in June, when a co-ordinated social media campaign attempted to stir up anti-government sentiment.

Despite its efforts, large demonstrations were held in support of the Cuban government, demanding an end to the crippling six-decade US blockade which is estimated to have cost its economy $754 billion (£544bn) since 1959.

US President Joe Biden was accused of hypocrisy in his claim to support the Cuban people — while instructing delegates to block a UN resolution calling for an end to the punitive US embargo.

As US hostility escalated, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez pressed the case for military intervention to force regime change, calling for air strikes on Cuba.

The European Parliament debate, due tomorrow, is intended to place more pressure on Havana.

Today’s statement from the Cuban parliament’s international relations commission said it had noted the motion “with disgust,” saying that, once again, the chamber was being turned “into a pawn in manoeuvres of escalating aggression that is contrary to genuine European interests.

“The promoters of this latest manoeuvre lack the moral authority to hold themselves out as defenders of the rights of the Cuban people,” the statement said.

The MEPs who tabled the motion were accused of “bending to the will of a foreign power that is waging against our country a brutal economic, commercial, financial, political and communication war — intensified at a time when we are faced with the pandemic — as the most flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of all Cubans, a fact which these persons, demonstrating their emblematic political hypocrisy, have never even bothered to denounce.”

The Cuban government warned that the MEPs pushing the anti-Cuba line do not have a genuine concern for human rights but are instead pushing a political agenda.

“We call on the MEPs not to lend their support to this latest manoeuvre,” it said.