CUBA: Human Rights Debate Tangles Latin American Relations

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Apr 9 2002 (IPS) - Cuba’s human rights record and the Fidel Castro government’s reaction to criticism have led some Latin American countries to reconsider diplomatic ties with Havana and to hint at action within the United Nations, marking the continued deterioration of the island’s relations in the region.

Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque stated Friday that the Cuban government rejects any criticism or recommendation involving the country’s human rights situation.

This is widely interpreted as the official Cuban stance for this year’s sessions of the UN Commission on Human Rights, under way in Geneva until Apr 26.

“We reject even a blank sheet of paper with the name Cuba across the top,” said Pérez Roque, foreshadowing a four-point proposal circulating this week in Geneva believed to have been drafted by Peru.

The document recognises Cuba’s achievements as far as social rights, like education and health care, and calls for similar progress in the areas of civil and political rights, and proposes that the country should adopt the international treaties on human rights.

The text does not include an explicit condemnation of Cuba’s human rights situation, as such proposals have in the past, but urges Havana to cooperate with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, which would involve a mission by a special rapporteur to the island.

Cuba has kept its doors closed to any UN human rights representative from the UN for more than a decade and, according to political experts, there is little possibility that the Castro government will alter that position.

News reports out of Geneva state that the allegedly Peruvian document on Cuba would have the support of at least six of the 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries on the Commission: Uruguay, Guatemala, Argentina, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador.

A vote on the proposed resolution would take place Tuesday, Apr 16, according to diplomatic sources.

Meanwhile, a Montevideo newspaper, ‘La República’, reported Tuesday that Uruguay played a key role in drafting the proposal, which was purportedly reviewed by top Peruvian officials and Otto Reich, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America.

Reich, born in Havana in 1945 and residing in the United States since 1960, a year after the victory of the Castro-led revolution in Cuba, has close ties to the anti-Castro exile community in the U.S. city of Miami.

If no other such resolution is presented before the Commission on Human Rights, it would be the first time in 10 years that there is no motion to censure Cuba, and the first time that one is presented by Latin American countries about the island’s human rights situation.

“Cuba opposes and will oppose that ‘yanqui’ monster (United States), any resolution – whatever it might say and regardless of who presents it -, any declaration or appeal that we consider unfair and unjustified,” Havana’s representative before the UN Commission, Iván Mora, said Monday.

Cuban officials believe that the United States is behind all “manoeuvring” in Geneva related to the Caribbean country’s human rights policy. They charge that Washington has been making a great effort in recent months to find a Latin American sponsor for a resolution to censure the Castro government.

In this context, any Latin American government that criticises Cuba is accused of “bending to ‘yanqui’ intentions” and of adopting a “servile” attitude with respect to “the empire of the North”.

This year’s attacks out of Havana have been directed at Argentina, Costa Rica and Uruguay, the only countries in the region that have publicly announced their intention to support a condemnation of Cuba for its human rights record if such a proposal appears before the Commission.

“They are willing to bow down when no one has asked them to. A position I would say is coherently a genuflexion to the interests of the United States government,” Pérez Roque said Friday on Cuba’s government-run national television.

While Argentina stated only that its response to the Cuban foreign minister would be seen in its vote in Geneva, Uruguay called its ambassador to Cuba, Enrique Estrázulas, in for consultations, and awaits a clarification from Havana.

Uruguay’s President Jorge Batlle said Monday, according to ‘La República’, that the decision has been made to recall the ambassador to Cuba, and would only change if the Castro government officially rectifies the Cuban foreign minister’s words.

Didier Opertti, Uruguay’s foreign minister, told a press conference Saturday that Batlle has not ruled out the possibility of breaking diplomatic ties with Cuba, but stressed that it would be “the last step”.

“The first step is the one we are taking (calling the ambassador in for consultation). The second would be the withdrawal of the ambassador. The third is the suspension of relations, and the fourth would be to sever ties” with Havana, said Opertti.

Pérez Roque charged that Uruguay will vote in Geneva to censure Cuba in exchange for a quota of the U.S. market for beef, allegedly promised by the George W. Bush government.

“Uruguay takes good care of its wool and mutton market when it comes to its vote in Geneva,” commented the Cuban foreign minister, who added that Batlle’s priority “is the U.S. annexation of Uruguay through a free trade agreement.”

Pérez Roque said Uruguay has no moral authority on the human rights question, and pointed to that country’s amnesty law for human rights violations committed by military and police during the military dictatorship (1973-1985), legislation that was passed in 1986 and upheld in a national referendum in 1989.

The diplomatic tensions coincide with the arrival in Uruguay of a donation of 200,000 doses of meningitis B vaccine from Cuba to fight an outbreak of the disease.

Havana did not accept Batlle’s proposal to subtract the cost of the vaccine from Cuba’s debt to Uruguay, rejecting the notion of mixing business with health concerns.

In addition to Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba and Uruguay, the Latin American representation at the UN Commission on Human Rights this year includes Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.

To date, Venezuela has announced unconditional support for Cuba, and Mexico and Brazil are expected to abstain from any vote on the island’s human rights record, non-action that Pérez Roque said Cuba would consider “an act of courage”.

Chile denied Monday that it is promoting a recommendation – through the Rio Group, an intergovernmental forum for Latin America and the Caribbean – for the UN to create a special oversight commission for human rights in Cuba.

Pérez Roque had suggested Friday that Washington is “using” the Rio Group “to prepare the new conspiracy against Cuba.”

‘El Mercurio’, a Chilean daily, published a report Sunday that President Ricardo Lagos is leading efforts to draw up a new formula for the Cuban case, the text of which would be presented at the Rio Group Summit, to take place Thursday and Friday in San José.

The Rio Group consists of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The controversy about the moral authority of other Latin American countries to judge the status of human rights in Cuba turned into the centre of Cuban foreign policy in the first months of last year.

Cuba’s political attacks before and after last year’s vote in Geneva on a resolution to censure the Castro government prompted Argentina’s ambassador and Costa Rica’s consul to leave Havana, an official protest from Guatemala, and a verbal altercation between foreign ministers Pérez Roque and Jorge Castañeda, of Mexico.

Cuba, which has received a censure from the UN Commission every year since 1990, except for 1998, is attempting to prevent another condemnation this year at all costs.

In 2001, the motion to censure the island came from the Czech Republic and was approved with 22 votes in favour, 20 against, 10 abstentions and one absence.

Four of the Latin American countries on the Commission at the time (Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Uruguay) voted in favour of the resolution. Brazil, Colombia (replaced this year by Chile), Ecuador, Mexico and Peru abstained, while Venezuela and Cuba voted against the motion.

For the first time since its creation 56 years ago, the United States does not hold a seat on the UN Commission on Human Rights, as decided in last year’s vote by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which is entrusted with deciding the periodic rotation of the Commission’s 53 seats.

Furthermore, the Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman announced Thursday that his country would not present a motion to censure Cuba during this year’s six-week sessions of the UN Commission.

Havana faces human rights criticisms because the government does not hold presidential elections, it restricts freedoms of expression, bans the political opposition, maintains tight control over the communications media and holds prisoners of conscience.

The Castro government, meanwhile, argues that Cuba respects the population’s social rights more than any other country in Latin America or the Caribbean.

Officials in Havana charge that what is in question in Geneva is Cuba’s right to maintain “its own system”, which is of a socialist bent.