• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 09 / 19 / 2010

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September 18, 2010. The Cuban political prisoners who were freed and flown to Madrid are "scum" creating problems, the Cuban ambassador to Spain said at a Communist Party seminar in San Fernando de Henares.

Quoted by the Spanish daily El Mundo, Alejandro González Galiano denounced the efforts of several ex-inmates who are trying to convince the European Union to maintain its "common position" toward Cuba. That stance – "which Cuba totally rejects as meddlesome," according to González.

When asked by journalists about Fidel Castro's recent statement that the Cuban model "doesn't even work for us," González said the leader's words were "manipulated" and that Castro "would never betray the principles of the banner of the Cuban revolution,"  the diplomat said. "Cuba will not renounce its revolution. We shall do everything that needs to be done to perfect our system.

Will Cuba make adjustments? Certainly. The world changes and we must be able to take the steps that may be necessary to solve the nation's economic problems, because no model can stand up if it is not successful from the socioeconomic point of view."

The economy must be "more efficient," he said. "We have to remove paternalisms that no longer work. We even have to remove things that worked earlier in the Revolution and don't work today, that are a ballast, a burden to our system." Still, those "adjustments" do not mean "ever renouncing the social justice" of the Cuban system, González said.

Read more: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/#ixzz0zv040iyS