Cuba: Council Re-Election an Endorsement

yahoo.com news ^ | April 30, 2003 | AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

HAVANA - Cuba's re-election to the U.N. Human Rights Council is a recognition of the island's contribution to human rights around the world, Fidel Castro's government said Wednesday.

Another three-year term for Cuba on the U.N. panel "is undoubtedly a recognition of the Cuban Revolution's work in human rights in favor of all our people," said a government statement published in the Communist Party daily Granma.

It's an endorsement of "the contribution thousands of Cubans have made over four decades to the human rights of people in more than 100 countries," the statement added.

Cuba said it presented 10 projects to the U.N. commission last year defending social rights and denouncing the burden of foreign debt on developing countries.

U.S. delegates walked out of a U.N. meeting in protest Tuesday when Cuba's re-election was announced. The communist country's election came weeks after Castro's government sentenced 75 dissidents to long prison terms on charges of collaborating with U.S. diplomats to undermine Cuba's socialist regime. It also followed the April 11 execution of three Cubans who hijacked a ferry packed with passengers in an attempt to reach the United States. No one was hurt in the hijacking.

Governments and human rights groups worldwide condemned the executions and the crackdown. Cuba argued the executions were necessary to avoid a migration crisis provoked by the United States.

During this year's annual six-week session which ended Friday, the U.N.'s top human rights watchdog narrowly passed a resolution calling on Cuba to accept a visit by a human rights monitor but failed to approve an amendment criticizing Cuba's crackdown.

Under U.N. rules, regional groups decide who fills seats on U.N. bodies.Latin America chose Cuba, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru for six open seats.

Cuba said its re-election was a "victory" that "contrasted with the United States' embarrassing defeat in 2001" when the United States lost its place on the panel. The United States recovered its seat in 2002.

Cuba has been on the 53-member U.N. rights commission since 1989.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

April 23, 2003 - Nicaragua recalled its envoy in Cuba for consultations Wednesday after the Cuban government accused several Latin nations of acting as "lackeys" of the United States.

A demonstrator protests in favor of Cuban President Fidel Castro during a demonstration by supporters and opponents of the Cuban government who criticize the execution of three kidnappers of a boat and the imprisonment of 75 dissidents, in front of the Cuban Embassy in Managua, Nicaragua Tuesday, April 29, 2003.(AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Willful blindness shattered by Cuba's crackdown - Castro shows the brutal face of his regime*** The wilful blindness to President Castro's repression has been underlined by the shock at the recent crackdown. The Pope, who insisted on his controversial visit to Havana five years ago that he had won significant human rights concessions, spoke of his "deep sorrow" at the executions and urged Señor Castro to consider a "significant gesture of clemency" toward those convicted.

Perhaps the biggest shock was felt by the writers, poets and artists who have long defended Cuba and its autocratic ruler. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes called the country "a suffocating dictatorship", the Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago said Fidel Castro "cheated his enemies" and the Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, who once praised him as a "symbol of national dignity", acknowledged that the crackdown had fuelled opposition claims that he was a dictator. There have been demonstrations in Caracas and Madrid.***

[Howlin]

Cuba's re-election to the U.N. Human Rights Council is a recognition of the island's contribution to human rights around the world, Fidel Castro's government said Wednesday.

Kofi must be so proud.

[Howlin]

FYI.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bustin' his buttons.

[Jay D. Dyson]

If anyone needed (more) proof that the U.N. is little more than a shill for tinpot dictators, there it is.

-Jay

[Defiant]

I think the Cuban community in Florida ought to start lobbying to add Cuba to the "regime change" list. Wouldn't take much to eliminate the dictator.

[DeuceTraveler]

It's statements such as this that cause me to feel sick in the stomach.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Cuba's crackdown and America's man in Havana *** Cuban officials became anxious as Mr Cason travelled to meet dissidents in their homes and invited them to his official residence. Mr Castro was piqued when Mr Cason - speaking outside the home of Marta Beatriz Roque, a now-imprisoned dissident - said Cuba was growing fearful of internal opposition. Two weeks later a defiant Mr Castro told the National Assembly that Cuba could "very easily do without the US interests section office". The offensive soon followed. William Leogrande, Dean of the School of Public Affairs at Washington DC's American University, called Mr Cason's "very public stand" the "catalyst" for the crackdown. "The dissidents were not well-served by Cason's very public embrace," he said. "It was as if he were throwing the gauntlet down to the Cuban regime."

Ties between the US interest section and the dissidents were used as trial evidence, as was the testimony of several Cuban security agents who infiltrated the movement. State-run media then published this testimony to discredit the dissidents as mercenaries bankrolled by the US. While Mr Cason has expressed no regret for his activities, he has curtailed his public engagements while he and other officials reassess how best to support dissidents without jeopardising them. Mr Leogrande noted that remaining dissidents have developed "some effective models of resistance. The Castro regime has no hope of restoring the ideology of the 1970s and 1980s so, just as in eastern Europe, time is on the dissidents' side."

But for now the arrests have thrown the dissident movement into a tailspin. Even when the Castro government was relatively permissive of dissident organising, few Cubans knew about their efforts or got involved. Recruitment is certain to be more difficult now that the movement has been criminalised, deeply infiltrated by state agents, and proved so easily dismantled. Vladimiro Roca, a leading Havana dissident and former political prisoner who has so far been spared in the crackdown, said: "Yes, some people may be afraid to join us and we have to rebuild. But what the government has done only reminds us that the future belongs to the dissidents, and that gives us strength. "The government says that we are insignificant groups, that we are 'minuscule'," Mr Roca said. "But what sort of hunter shoots a sparrow with a cannon?"***

[yonif]

hahahaha

[george wythe]

Libya is the chair of the UN Human Rights commision:

The United Nations Human Rights Commission has begun it annual session in Geneva amid controversy as a pressure group was barred from participating for staging a protest against Libya's chairing of the meeting.

The group - Reporters Without Borders (RSF) - was suspended for showering the meeting with leaflets criticising Libya's record on human right

In a statement, RSF said that Libya's heading of the commission was a "sick joke" that called into question the forum's credibility.

RSF said its protest was aimed to highlight what the group said was Libya's gross violations of human rights, including disappearances, torture and arbitrary arrests.

"At last the UN has appointed someone who knows what she's talking about," RSF said in the leaflets, referring to Ms al-Hajjaji, Lybia's ambassador.

"What credibility can such a body have when led by the representative of a country where human rights are abused every day, " the group said.

[The Hon. Galahad Threepwood]

Cuba's re-election to the U.N. Human Rights Council is a recognition of the island's contribution to human rights around the world, Fidel Castro's government said Wednesday.

This, sadly, is by far the most reasonable interpretation of events.

So why are we still in the UN?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

To annoy them.

[ImphClinton]

I AGREE.

It is high time we got out of this useless orgnization it is no more relevant than the League of Nations.

We should start buying oil from Iraq all that can be produced and thumb our noses at the UN. Rebuild Iraq with their own oil money in to another Second World country on the way to First World. Build schools to educate all Iraquis. Build new Factories with the latest technology. Make them able to compete. This would give all Arabs hope. It would be the death keal for "Old Europe".

[Ebenezer]

Fidel Castro had this to say about the Cuban government statement on the UN Human Rights Commission which appeared in Granma: "This 'Baghdad Bob' is a great writer. So accurate and truthful! Good thing we hired him after he lost his job in Iraq!"

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A crowd of several hundered demonstarators, many of them Cubans, rally in Madrid, Spain Saturday April 26, 2003 to protest Cuban President Fidel Castro's recent crackdown on dissent and the execution of three hijackers. Cuba has come under heavy world criticism in recent weeks for sentencing 75 dissidents to prison terms ranging from six to 28 years and for the firing-squad executions of three men convicted of hijacking a ferry. Main banner reads 'End the Cuban Tragedy'. (AP Photo/Paul White)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Fidel Castro had this to say about the Cuban government statement on the UN Human Rights Commission which appeared in Granma: "This 'Baghdad Bob' is a great writer. So accurate and truthful! Good thing we hired him after he lost his job in Iraq!"

And this Dr. Germ, she's going to enjoy working in our world-class labs!

[headsonpikes]

"To annoy them."

Personally, I think Cuba's a wonderful choice. The time is ripe to expose all the rotten dictatorships and their French-speaking enablers for the conniving b*stards they are.

Libya, Cuba, N Korea, and the rest of that sorry lot deserve the spotlight, richly.

The general public is somewhat disturbed over Saddam's excesses; they just might pay attention to allied issues in other good U.N. members.

;^)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Ripping the lid off! An excellent idea.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[Blood of Tyrants]

Actually, the UN's re-election of Cuba to the HR Commission is an indictment of the UN.