HUMAN RIGHTS: UN Commission Votes to Censure Cuba

By Gustavo Capdevila and Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila and Patricia Grogg

GENEVA/HAVANA, Apr 19 2001 (IPS) - The United Nations Commission on Human Rights reached the end of its list of prickly items for this year’s sessions Wednesday with a vote to censure Cuba and a refusal to discuss a similar resolution against China.

The Commission narrowly adopted the Czech Republic’s resolution that expresses “profound concern” about the human rights situation in Cuba. There were 22 votes in favour, 20 against, 10 abstentions and one absence recorded in the final tally.

China, meanwhile, obtained the approval of the controversial “motion for non-action” with 23 votes in favour, 17 against, 12 abstentions and one absence. The measure prevented consideration of a United States- backed resolution to censure the Asian nation.

The annual six-week session of the UN human rights forum – in which delegates from its 53 member countries assesses abuses and violations around the world – wraps up in Geneva next Friday, April 27.

The Czech Republic, in justifying its initiative against Cuba, cautioned that the result of the vote would indicate the intentions that the forum’s members harbour for the future of the Commission.

“What is at stake is nothing less than the future of the human rights discourse and of our common freedom,” asserted Martin Palous, the Czech assistant minister of Foreign Relations.

Since the end of the Cold War, the predominating orientation within the UN Commission on Human Rights has come under fire, particularly from developing countries, which claim the body adheres to the prevailing ideas and interests held by the industrialised North.

Cuba’s delegate before the Commission, Carlos Amat Flores, said the Czech-sponsored resolution damages the credibility and prestige of the UN forum in the eyes of the international community.

Only Cuba and other developing countries seem to merit criticism from the Commission, which uses its “double standard” in acting as “a shredder” of sovereignty in order to impose its own model, maintained the Cuban ambassador.

Algerian representative Mohammed-Salah Dembri said the initiative against Cuba establishes a logic of “tension and confrontation” within the Commission.

The initiative adopted here Wednesday calls on Cuba to ensure respect for human rights and basic freedoms, and to create an appropriate framework for guaranteeing the state of law based on democratic institutions and the independence of the Judiciary.

The document also exhorts Havana to engage in dialogue with political opposition groups, which the island’s officials have declared illegal.

The Czech assistant minister Palous introduced a last-minute modification to the resolution’s original text, calling for international measures to help improve the economic situation of the Cuban people.

The new paragraph reflected an attempt to satisfy the demands of countries that object to the nearly 40-year economic, trade and financial embargo the United States has maintained against Cuba.

The change to the original text apparently calmed the apprehensions of some member nations of the European Union (EU) and of Latin American countries such as Argentina, Costa Rica and Uruguay, which as a result voted in favour of censuring Cuba.

Havana’s diplomat Amat Flores, meanwhile, charged that the paragraph referring to the blockade against the island had been removed from the original text as a result of US pressure, which shows “the incapacity of the European Union to defend its positions.”

Dembri wondered what human rights philosophy would accept sanctions such as those the United States imposes against certain countries, which, said the Algerian diplomat, constitute “an insult to human intelligence.”

The Cuban government considers the island nation to be a model for human rights, given its far-reaching social policy and its citizens’ equal access to health services, education, employment and social security.

But the same treatment is not afforded to certain civil rights on the island. The single-party government restricts freedoms of association and assembly and bans all press that is opposed to President Fidel Castro’s socialist administration.

The Belgian delegation, speaking on behalf of the entire EU, declared that it shares the concern expressed about the human rights situation in Cuba, but at the same time it is worried by the negative consequences in that country arising from the US blockade.

Though the United States voted in favour of the resolution against Cuba, it kept out of the debate. Regardless, the delegates from Cuba and China pegged Washington as the responsible party for the initiatives to censure their respective countries.

The United States has been manipulating the UN Commission on Human Rights for the last decade, according to China. Amat Flores, meanwhile, lamented that no DNA tests were conducted “to determine who is the true father” of the document presented by the Czech Republic.

In the Cuban capital, immediately after the results of the Commission’s vote were announced, Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque asserted that his country would not accept a resolution reached as a result of blackmail and pressure from the United States.

“The levels of pressure have been extraordinary, like never before, grossly using all elements in order to achieve the approval of the anti- Cuban resolution,” he said.

The socialist-run island’s diplomats had worked hard to avoid another censure. This year marked the third consecutive condemnation since Cuba was able to prevent one in 1998.

Pérez Roque was apparently caught off-guard by Guatemala’s support for the Czech initiative, as he had underscored Cuba’s medical assistance to the Central American country just prior to hearing the UN Commission’s vote.

The Foreign Minister accused the United States of carrying out an intense campaign “of pressure and intimidation” targeting the African countries represented on the Commission to win their votes in favour of the censure.

One Latin American diplomat consulted by IPS said that the UN human rights forum has turned into the arena for US-Cuban confrontation, a dynamic that detracts from the impact of the resolution against the island, he said.

Manuel Cuesta Morúa, secretary general of the Cuban Democratic Socialist Movement, an illegal opposition party, lamented that it has proven impossible to extract the human rights issue from the Cuba-US conflict.

But, despite its politicisation, this year’s UN condemnation demonstrates “the international community’s awareness of the human rights situation in Cuba,” commented Cuesta Morúa.