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RIGHTS: Cuba Takes US to Task on UN Commission

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Apr 1 2003 (IPS) - The Cuban government has taken the offensive this year in the debate that pits Havana against Washington in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights during its annual sessions held in this Swiss city.

The Cuban delegation to the Commission accused the United States of tolerating terrorism, and rejected beforehand a proposed resolution on the human rights situation in Cuba, presented by Costa Rica, Peru and Uruguay, and which diplomats described as making amends.

Washington, meanwhile, condemned Havana for the arrest of 70 Cuban dissidents on the island in the past two weeks.

A motion by the three nations sponsoring the resolution expresses satisfaction with the designation of French jurist Christine Chanet as personal representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation in Cuba, and urges the Cuban government to receive her and help facilitate her mission to the socialist-run island.

Chanet is to carry out the mandate issued a year ago by the Commission on Human Rights, which ordered a mission to assess the status of human rights in Cuba, but Havana announced on Mar 14, before the Commission’s annual period of sessions began, that it would not grant her entry.

Havana alleges that the Commission’s resolutions aimed at Cuba – a form of censure that has been approved every year since 1990, save 1998 – are in fact promoted by Washington in order to keep the island’s situation on the agenda and to justify the U.S. embargo against the Caribbean nation.

Cuban officials have emphasised on several occasions that any Commission resolution dealing specifically with their country is unacceptable.

Iván Mora Godoy, the Cuban delegate to the Commission, disparaged the draft resolution presented by the three Latin American countries and the fact that they were trying to pass it off as "harmless".

From the other extreme, Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based non- governmental organisation, criticised what it described as a "mild- mannered" Latin American-sponsored draft resolution.

HRW’s global advocacy director, Rory Mungoven, says the Latin American text seems to welcome progress in Cuba, "despite a wave of recent arrests of dissidents and its failure to admit special envoy of the High Commissioner on Human Rights," Chanet.

Chanet was named to her post as personal representative two months ago by the High Commissioner, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian national.

Chanet told the Commission Tuesday that given the brief period of her tenure it would be premature to submit what is intended to be a serious and objective evaluation of the overall human rights situation in Cuba.

An impartial assessment, she said, requires exhaustive analysis of reports from a variety of sources, verification of such elements, and information gathering from the rapporteur and committees within the UN human rights system.

"The government of Cuba has apparently forbidden your entry to the country and reiterates its determination to continue to forbid your entry. Under these circumstances, how do you propose fulfil your mandate from the Commission?" the U.S. delegation asked Chanet.

The UN representative said she recognises that Cuban opposition to her visiting the island is a major obstacle for her mission because it would be a positive step to be able to evaluate "in the field" the reality in regards to information received about the human rights situation.

The U.S. delegation also pressed Chanet on the issue of the 70 dissidents arrested in Cuba in recent days, asking her, "Can you provide us concrete circumstances of their incarceration and can you tell us what steps you are taking to secure their prompt release?"

The personal representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation in Cuba said she had just learned of the situation, "just like everyone else," and that she had no further information.

In this year’s sessions of the Commission, Washington’s delegates have so far refrained from commentary on the draft resolution presented by Costa Rica, Peru and Uruguay last year.

But there is word on the diplomatic front that the United States is manoeuvring to achieve harsher language in the resolution text and the inclusion of a reference to the recent arrests of Cuban dissidents.

Official inclusion of the amendment sought by the United States would require a vote by the Commission, which has been highly sensitised by international events and could react in unexpected ways, according to comments by leaders of human rights watchdog groups.

The Washington delegation already won a vote in its favour. Last week it convinced the Commission to reject an initiative to hold a special debate on the human rights situation in Iraq as a consequence of the U.S.-led war in that country.

To achieve a majority among the Commission’s 53 member states, the United States had to press delegates and governments, using tactics that reached "brutal" intensity, commented a Latin American diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.

As a result of this pressure, Chile’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Juan Enrique Vega, stepped down.

The diplomat is said to have misinterpreted the instructions of his president, Ricardo Lagos, to vote in relation to the balance of positions of Argentina, which voted against, and of Brazil, which voted in favour of a special session of debate on Iraq.

Vega won the ire of the Chilean Foreign Ministry when he inclined towards abstention.

The United States began its lobbying efforts last December, targeting the Latin American governments through the State Department, anti-Castro lawmakers from the U.S. state of Florida and secret envoys, charged Cuban ambassador Mora Godoy.

The result of that endeavour is the text presented by Costa Rica, Peru and Uruguay, he said.

Mora Godoy criticised the UN commission for ignoring the fact that the U.S. government, the same that has launched a war on terrorism since the Sep 11, 2001 "brutal terrorist attacks" has tolerated and "continues to condone the terrorism planned and carried out from Miami against Cuba."