Rumba in Geneva
UNITED NATIONS Decrying an unprecedented wave of oppression, French Judge Christine Chanet slammed the Castro regime for its widespread human rights violations in Cuba. Given that the setting was the UNs annual Commission on Human Rights Sessions Havanas delegates were hardly pleased with the international limelight.
A political rumba took place in the otherwise staid Human Rights Committee in Geneva as Cuban communist delegates responded by saying that the Report of the Commissioner for Human Rights was you guessed it were discriminatory and wouldnt you know motivated by a policy of domination by the United States.
Christine Chanet serving as Personal Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights told the commission she had hoped to gain access to Cuba as to ascertain information on human and civil rights on the Caribbean island. In an attempt to open dialogue to fulfill her mandate, she received no cooperation from the Cuban government. Even though she still noted positive aspects in her report within the sphere of economic, social and cultural rights, where there had been improvement in religious freedom, the Havana regime was singularly unimpressed and fired back at the UN commission with full rhetorical salvos.
Judge Chanet reported an unprecedented wave of repression was unleashed in March and April of 2003 in Cuba, and nearly 80 members of civil society were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. She added that those arrested were tried rapidly with no lawyers present, and were considered arbitrarily detained by the appropriate United Nations working group.
A draft resolution sponsored by Honduras has come before the 60th annual session of the Geneva commission which would censure the Cuban communists for their crackdown on the political dissidents and journalists. Last year with the support of Costa Rica, the U.S. failed to pass such a resolution.
Naturally political sparring in the rights commission is nothing new attempted censures of Communist China or Sudan for that matter usually fall by the wayside through a unique combination of third world bullying and intimidation.. Given that many members of the 53 member commission are dictatorships like Cuba, this should come as no surprise.
Yet Cubas case is no less deserving as the Castro regime has long intimidated dissent through a less than subtle policy of repression which hides behind a faade of anti-Yanqui nationalism. This works well in Latin America where theres a unique solidarity among states, many of whom dont even share the same ideology.
Cuban delegate Jorge Ivan Godoy told the Commission, The personal representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had accepted a mandate that would inexorably lead to her becoming an instrument of the policy of constant US aggression against Cuba. Her report was fully consistent with the political and ideological rationale that determined US activitiesher analysis was conducted under the blindness of the ideological prejudice of bourgeois liberal fundamentalism and under the political motivation of domination. Seems the French judge has an image problem in Old Havana.
Still the Cubans can clear up the situation should they choose to do so. Allow international access to the eighty detainees such as Hestor Palacios, Oscar Elias Biscet, or Victor Rolando Arroyo, among them respected activists and journalists.
Allow the UN commission the chance to enter Cuba and see for itself the open society Fidel Castro claims with its press freedoms, civil and human rights, and its freedoms of expression.
Give Castros well honed skills of political manipulation, he should welcome the UN commission and have no trouble in charming them unless of course he has something to hide.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.  |
