Posted on 05/02/2003 8:33:37 AM PDT by bedolido
The United Nations' Commission on Human Rights could be a force for good. The sad news is that Cuba's re-election to the panel this week signals the commission's bent toward protecting human rights abusers instead. The worldwide Human Rights Watch group says on its website that a crackdown on Cuban political dissidents, journalists and directors of independent libraries has been under way since March 18. Eighty people are known to have been arrested on charges of aiding the United States, denied due process and tried, often behind closed doors. Prosecutors sought life sentences for several defendants, and they may feel lucky to have gotten 20-year sentences. Yet a government that jails poets simply for writing poetry violates a basic standard of human decency.
The U.N. commission, which has issued 10 resolutions against human rights violations in Cuba over the past 11 years, rightly responded by insisting that Cuba accept a special human rights envoy. Fidel Castro's government refused to go along with any monitoring, a strong indication he has plenty to hide.
America's delegation was right, too, to walk out in protest of the commission's leadership failure in seating Cuba again. For the panel to be other than a joke, we must do more.
Our government should press for minimum membership criteria that should include at least basic observance of key human rights treaties and cooperation with the U.N. human rights monitoring system. And we shouldn't rest until such criteria are in place.
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