U.N. Commission Vote Reveals an Isolated Cuba

U.N. Commission Vote Reveals an Isolated Cuba
Diego Cevallos - IPS 4/18/03
(IPS correspondents from Latin America and Geneva contributed to this report.)

Most Latin American countries are not looking for ways to justify the Cuban government's recent crackdown on dissidents, despite a history of regional solidarity, but instead are voicing stronger criticisms of Havana, with condemnations coming even from the ranks of the political left.
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights approved a motion on Cuba Thursday in Geneva, with 24 votes in favour, 20 against and nine abstentions. Of the 11 Latin American countries in the 53- member body, only Venezuela voted against the initiative.

MEXICO CITY, Apr 17 (IPS) - Most Latin American countries are not looking for ways to justify the Cuban government's recent crackdown on dissidents, despite a history of regional solidarity, but instead are voicing stronger criticisms of Havana, with condemnations coming even from the ranks of the political left.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights approved a motion on Cuba Thursday in Geneva, with 24 votes in favour, 20 against and nine abstentions. Of the 11 Latin American countries in the 53- member body, only Venezuela voted against the initiative.

Regional giants Brazil and Argentina abstained from the U.N. Commission vote on the resolution on Cuba, a text considered "soft" and even "accommodating" in diplomatic circles because it does not include any explicit denunciations, nor does it mention the repressive measures taken by the Cuban government in recent weeks.

In mid-March, the Cuban authorities rounded up 75 members of the political opposition -- including rights activists and journalists -- and in early April subjected them to summary trials, handing down harsh prison sentences totalling more than 1,500 years.

Then, last Friday, just hours after extreme summary trials, three men who had hijacked a ferryboat in a bid to flee to the United States were executed by firing squad.

The U.N. resolution -- authored by Costa Rica, Peru and Uruguay -- urges the Fidel Castro government to facilitate a visit by special rapporteur to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Christine Chanet, whose mission is to assess the situation on the island.

Havana reiterated after Thursday's vote that it would not receive Chanet.

There was surprisingly little debate prior to the vote, and an amendment proposed Wednesday by Costa Rica to include a condemnation of Cuba's recent crackdown on dissidents was voted down, despite backing from the United States and other western countries.

Also left by the wayside was a Cuban amendment to include demands for an immediate end to the "unilateral and illegal" blockade that the United States has maintained against the island for nearly four decades and for a U.N. investigation of "terrorist acts" against Cuba launched from U.S. territory.

The Cuban government interpreted the outcome of the vote as an example of its neighbours' submissiveness with respect to the United States.

Many Latin American governments are distancing themselves from Castro, including those with leftist leanings.

Through communiqués in the newspaper 'Granma', voice of the Cuban government, the Castro administration has referred to fellow Latin American countries, particularly the three authors of the resolution, as "lackeys of the empire", "wretched puppets" of the United States and "models of abjection and treason."

The epithets came in response to the stance of various Latin American countries in the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, but also to the criticisms launched against the recent repressive actions of the Cuban government.

Cuba believes that Washington has begun "building up the logistics" for a military intervention against the island, and has taken the decision to confront it no matter the political costs involved, Heinz Dieterich, a German sociologist at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico, told IPS.

Cuba is attempting to "snatch away from Washington the strategic initiative to fight the war" that the government believes is imminent, says Dieterich, author of several books about Cuba, some written jointly with officials from the island.

The Castro government is apparently trying to remove the domestic opposition movement in order to streamline the country for war, using the dissidents to "set an example" to prevent actions that endanger the country's national security.

Havana's fears of invasion are based on the success of the U.S.- led war against Iraq without U.N. approval, on the sharp reduction of visas Washington is granting to Cubans seeking to travel to the United States, on the increased activism of dissidents on the island, and on the bold actions and outspoken attitude of James Cason, chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders and the International Parliament of Writers, among other non-governmental organisations, have spoken out against the Castro government's crackdown on the opposition.

Also making public pronouncements critical of Havana, in response to the trials of dissidents and executions of hijackers, were internationally know writers José Saramago of Portugal and Eduardo Galeano of Uruguay, both seen as spokesmen for the left.

Saramago announced that he has lost his confidence in the Castro government, while Galeano pointed out the signs of decadence "of the model of centralised power."

Among the governments of Latin America, the possibility of a U.S. invasion of Cuba is something that is not even being mentioned. What is relevant to the region appears to be the hard line that the Castro regime has taken against the until recently tolerated dissident movement.

Brazil, which abstained from Thursday's vote on the motion on Cuba, has expressed "strong concern" about the summary trials of the dissidents and the application of the death penalty, and will make its position "clearly known" to the Castro government.

Within Brazil's leftist Workers Party (PT), of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the issue generated some divisions.

PT lawmaker Fernando Gabeira, who lived in exile in Cuba for a time during Brazil's dictatorship, demanded that the Lula government issue a firm condemnation of the executions and clampdown on dissidents by the Castro government.

But the PT's assistant secretary for foreign relations, legislative deputy Paulo Delgado, says his party is "a friend of Cuba" and does not consider its government a dictatorship.

Divisions also formed within Uruguay's leftist Broad Front coalition, in which some parties expressed "rejection" of the executions, while others repeated their "absolute support for the measures of the Castro government." The point of consensus, however, was that they all express, in a historic sense, "solidarity with the Cuban revolution."

Mexico, until recently an historic ally of Cuba, decided to support the resolution critical of the island's human rights record in the U.N. Commission for the second consecutive year. The Vicente Fox government said in a statement prior to the vote in Geneva that it is "deeply concerned" about the status of human rights on the island.

According to the Castro government, Mexico and Chile (the latter of which also condemned the dissident arrests and the executions, and voted in favour of the U.N. resolution on Cuba) are "hypocrites" and act using a double standard.

Cuba says they are inconsistent, having voted as non-permanent members of the U.N. Security Council against the U.S. plans to invade Iraq, but then voted with Washington when Havana was in the dock.

Both Argentina and Brazil expressed concern about the recent events in Cuba, but abstained from the vote in Geneva reportedly because they see the U.N. Commission on Human Rights as having politicised its pronouncements about the Castro government.

The Chilean Senate passed a resolution Wednesday reproving the recent human rights violations in Cuba.

Costa Rica, which in Geneva had sought a more harshly worded resolution on Cuba, has announced that it will continue efforts in various international forums to expose the Castro government's record, because there has been "a worsening and deterioration of human rights" on the island.

Foreign minister of Costa Rica, Roberto Tovar, said his country cannot "remain quiet and fail to point out the wave of repression suffered by hundreds of Cubans, victims of the recent imprisonments, summary trials and executions."