HUMAN RIGHTS-CUBA: Gov’t Rejects Any and All External Criticism

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Feb 18 2001 (IPS) - Cuba’s human rights situation has become one of the main focuses of the foreign policy of the government of Fidel Castro, which staunchly rejects any outside criticism whatsoever.

Havana not only rejects the accusations, but is becoming more and more sensitive towards any criticism at all, whether it comes from the United States, the European Union or Latin America.

“There is not the slightest reason to single out the situation in Cuba,” said Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, referring to rumours of a moderate draft resolution reportedly being discussed by a group of Latin American countries for submission to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

The purported resolution would be presented as an alternative to the one sponsored by Poland and the Czech Republic – the by-now traditional condemnation of Cuba’s human rights record. The moderate version is backed by Mexico, Argentina and Chile, according to a Mexican magazine, Milenio.

Mexico is supposedly sounding out other Latin American countries to draw up a text that would urge the Cuban government to respect human rights, while demanding that the United States lift its 40-year embargo against this Caribbean island nation.

Marie Claire Acosta, the director of human rights and democracy in Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Relations, reportedly visited Havana this month to explain the proposal, which would entail a modification of Mexico’s traditional position of abstaining from voting on the resolution condemning Cuba in the UN commission.

But Mexican Ambassador to Cuba Ricardo Pascoe said the reports on a moderate resolution were “false,” and were merely an attempt to “create friction between the two countries.”

“We are not going to head to summits or international forums to clash with the Cuban government,” said Pascoe, who has met with Castro several times since he was named ambassador by Mexico’s new government, headed by President Vicente Fox, in December.

Roque, for his part, denied that he had received any communique from Mexico on a new draft resolution against Cuba, while he underlined the strong relations between the two countries since Fox took office in Mexico in December.

The reports on a possible alternative resolution coincided with a heightening of tension in the diplomatic row between Cuba and Argentina, sparked by Castro’s remark that the Southern Cone nation would be “licking the boots of the Yankees” if it voted for the resolution condemning Cuba in Geneva, rather than abstaining.

In response, the government of Fernando de la Rúa ordered Argentina’s Ambassador in Havana, Oscar Torres Avalos, to remain in Buenos Aires indefinitely, and suspended a trade meeting scheduled for this month.

As occurs every year, the tension is rising as the annual session of the UN Human Rights Commission approaches, while versions circulate on who will vote for or against Cuba.

The Cuban government is accused of limiting civil liberties, banning political opposition, imprisoning dissidents, maintaining the state’s tight grip on the press and failing to hold presidential elections.

Cuban authorities retort that the socialist regime governing this island nation for more than 40 years respects the right to life, health care, education, employment and social security for all.

With respect to civil rights such as freedom of the press and freedom of association, the government says such concerns must remain on the backburner as long as the United States continues to organise and finance internal opposition groups.

According to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Cuba’s prisons currently hold some 300 political prisoners. The group’s president, Elizardo Sánchez, said the situation of civil and political rights in Cuba had taken a turn for the worse over the past year, while he forecast “an even greater deterioration” this year.

Local authorities, meanwhile, continue to use all of the means within their reach to demonstrate that the members of opposition groups in Cuba are merely agents of Washington attempting to subvert the internal order and overthrow Castro.

To illustrate that, they point to the Jan 12 arrest of two Czech nationals – opposition lawmaker Ivan Pilip and former student leader Jan Bubenik – who had been sent to Cuba by Freedom House, a right-wing U.S. foundation that receives government funding, to make contact with dissidents

Pilip and Bubenik were released on Feb 5, after they confessed to having violated Cuban law.

The spokesman for the Czech Ministry of Foreign Relations, Ales Pospisil, confirmed that his country and Poland were working on a resolution condemning Cuba to be presented this year in the UN Human Rights Commission, although he specified that Prague was opposed to economic sanctions against Havana.

In 1998, Havana finally made it off the black list of human rights violators, for the first time since 1990. That “pardon” was attributed to the global repercussions of the historic January 1998 visit of Pope John Paul II to Havana, and to his call for Cuba to open itself up to the world, and the world to Cuba.