 AFP Photo |
Posted on 04/15/2003 4:55:59 AM PDT by Luis Gonzalez
HAVANA (AFP) - The UN Human Rights Commission is due to rate Cuba's human rights record just days after the summary executions of three ferry hijackers and the jailing of 75 dissidents.
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The Geneva-based UN Commission is to take up this week a draft resolution co-sponsored by Uruguay, Peru, Nicaragua and Costa Rica on Cuba's human rights.
The executions Friday of three men who took some 40 people hostage on a commuter ferry broke Havana's three-year death penalty moratorium.
However, human rights leaders in Cuba are not necessarily hopeful that a failing grade from Geneva would help their cause.
"Personally, I neither want nor wish for" the condemnation of the Cuban government, Elizardo Sanchez, head of the illegal National Human Rights Reconciliation Commission of Cuba, told AFP.
"Unfortunately, findings by the UN or other defenders of human rights have meant little," he said.
"They only serve as moral support and as human recognition of the peaceful efforts of domestic activists."
According to Sanchez's commission, about 50 people currently sit on death row, including Salvadorans Ernesto Cruz Leon and Otto Rene Rodriguez. They were sentenced to die in 1999 for bombing Cuban hotels.
Prison sentences of up to 28 years were meted out to pro-democracy activists and journalists last week in a reversal of President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s recent tolerance of the Varela Project that circulated a petition demanding greater democratic reforms.
Lorenzo Enrique Copeyo Castillo, Barbaro Leodan Sevilla Garcia and Jorge Luis Martinez Isaac were handed heavy sentences due to the "seriousness of their acts for national security," according to the Council of State, over which Castro presides.
Last year, the UN Human Rights Commission adopted a mildly worded resolution by a narrow majority of its 53 members.
It called upon Cuba to "make progress in civil and political rights, in line with those already achieved in social areas in spite of unfavorable international conditions."
"The Cuban government pays no mind to international conscience or their statements, wherever they come from," Sanchez said.
Just the same, the European Union (news - web sites) warned Cuba that the crackdown and executions could mar Cuba's relationship with the EU.
"These latest developments which mark a further deterioration in the human rights situation in Cuba will affect the EU's relationship with Cuba and the prospects for increased cooperation," EU ministers said in a statement.
"We have to condemn (the executions) in the clearest possible way," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Monday.
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"We have to condemn (the executions) in the clearest possible way," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Monday.
EU + UN = EUNuchs.
Castro is supported by CNN, Carter, Rather, Jennings and the rest of the leftist cesspool.
Why should we believe there has been a "moratorium" on the death penalty?
Because nobody was executed in Carter's hotel room?
As for "president" Castro, I don't think so.
He's no more "president" than Saddam Hussein.
There is no effective sanction of Castro from any quarter save the U.S. embargo.
It's twenty years past time to rescind Reagan's 12333.
Perhaps Fidel will commit an Abu Nidal-type suicide.
That will be the most effective advancement of human rights in Cuba.
One suicide for 100,000 murders: it is time.
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