3-21-05, 9:21 am
At the 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland this past week, the Bush administration delegate submitted a draft resolution requesting it to submit a human rights report on Cuba and to monitor the Island through a special rapporteur, or representative to the commission.
This isn't the first such resolution offered by the Us government. In 2004 a similar resolution was submitted to the commission and adopted by one vote under extreme pressure from the Bush administration on countries that receive large amounts of US economic aid.
The 2005 request, however, has no co-sponsors and other members of the commission have vocalized little support for it.
Denounced by the Cuban government and other international representatives as politically motivated and biased, the resolution calls for the personal representative of the Higher Commissioner on Human Rights, French Christine Chanet, to present a report on the 'situation of human rights in Cuba' to the UNCHR on March 23rd. Similar resolutions that were adopted by the commission in 1994 and 1999 resulted in Cubans welcoming the High Commissioner for Human Rights to their country.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque accused Washington of turning the UNCHR into a platform to launch its selective attacks, while Cuban representative Juan Antonio Fernandez called Washington efforts in Geneva an excuse to justify the over-40-year blockade the US government has imposed on the Island.
In related news, United Nations for Food rapporteur Jean Ziegler asserted on Sunday that the four decades-old US-enforced blockade of Cuba is 'a flagrant violation of human rights.'
Ziegler, a renowned Swiss lawyer, added that the US hostile policy had not caused more catastrophic damage on the Island because the Cuban government had given full priority to public health, feeding and education for people. Ziegler also praised the work of hundreds of Cuban health workers who are assisting Third World nations.
'The US runs after any business relationship Cuba sets with foreign enterprises from any given third country, interferes in any Cuban financial transaction and limits family remittances and visits,' he denounced.
He said that as a UN rapporteur, he has the right to ask governments for explanation, but the Bush administration had turned down a visa request when the UN asked the US State Department for permission for his visit to Washington to discuss the blockade issue.
The White House rejected the petition for a visa and denied the UN rapporteur authorization to go to Washington.
Ziegler accused Washington of violating international law and described President Bush as 'a Pinochet in the White House' in reference to the war in Iraq and the mass of civilian deaths there.
Regarding Bush administration's maneuver against Cuba at the UN Commission of Human Rights (UNCHR), Ziegler upheld that Cuba has, like any other nation in the world, the right to self-determination, sovereignty and independence.
