| WHITE BOOK 2006 >> SECOND PART >>CHAPTER 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CHAPTER 2: THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PROCESSES OF THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS MACHINERY HAVE BEEN HIJACKED BY THE UNITED STATES AND ITS CLOSE ALLIES TO USE AS TOOLS FOR APPLYING PRESSURE TO IMPOSE THEIR POLICIES OF GLOBAL DOMINATION. Nearly six decades after the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was adopted and twelve years after the World Conference on Human Rights was held in Vienna, the United Nations machinery demonstrates —time and time again— that it is incapable of promoting and protecting all human rights for everyone, on the basis of respect for and adherence to the principles of universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-discrimination. The work of the Commission on Human Rights was bogged down by the political manipulation of a small group of powerful nations, most particularly by that of the world hegemonic superpower. This handful of rich countries regarded the Commission as its own private property and made ill use of it, as an instrument to jeopardise the interests of underdeveloped countries, which represent the immense majority of UN members, and to impose certain, supposedly universal norms and the pensée unique upon them. The Commission on Human Rights became a kind of court of the inquisition trying South countries and all who oppose the empire’s strategy of political and ideological domination. This mechanism relentlessly and dogmatically attempted to impose schemes and models touted as universal on these countries, try to minimize the protection and promotion of economic, social and cultural rights and aim to deny the recognition of and protection for the right of peoples to peace, development and self-determination. Manipulation, lies, double standards and empty rhetoric prevailed, while people closed their eyes to realities we face every day, even if many attempted to conceal them or, simply, remain blind to them. It is hard to reconcile Article 1 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which proclaims that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, with the fact that there are 900 hungers in the world, despite a sufficient production of foodstuff for all, with the fact that 1.200 million people worldwide have to live in absolute poverty, of which 876 million adults are illiterate and over 115 million children cannot access school, all of them in the developed world. The noble goals and lofty attributes that the Universal Declaration recognizes in every human being are nothing but a dead letter for 6 million children which die of preventable and curable diseases; for over 29 million children, mainly of disfavored communities not covered by the most elementary immunizations; for 300 million exploited children, the worst forms of child employment; community, institution and employment abuses or during armed conflicts. Nor do they mean much for the 40 million people living with AIDS in 2004, of which 2.2 million were under 15 years old, while the number of AIDS- related orphan children left orphan between 2001 and 2003 went up to 15 million. Over 1.200 million people –one in 5 worldwide- survive with less than a dollar a day; 2.400 million people cannot access basic hygienic conditions nor can 968 million access sources of running water. The dying Commission on Human Rights devoted neither the efforts nor the resources needed to promote the right to development, a fundamental human right which was recognized at the Vienna Conference and the only way to pull the wretched of the earth — who don’t see the use of resolutions approved in Geneva and New York— out of misery and hunger. Many are still waiting for the designation of a Special Rapporteur to follow up on and have industrialized countries honour their commitments with respect to Official Aid for Development and the cruel impact the reduction of such aid has had on human rights in underdeveloped countries. The right to development, to life, to food, to work, to education, to heath, the rights of women and children, in short, the right of all the planet’s inhabitants, not only a privileged few, to a decent life and to fully enjoy long-overdue social justice, is today a priority for, and only for, poor and underdeveloped countries. All country-specific resolutions adopted since 1990 accusingly pointed their finger at underdeveloped nations, as though they were truly the ones encroaching on human rights; all were put forth by developed countries. No one could objectively question the fact that a minority of countries has been imposing its biases and points of views on decisions which are internationally adopted on human rights issues. In the attached table, we can appreciate how every resolution adopted in the course of a decade under item 9 of the Commission’s agenda, established to look into serious human rights violations in “any part of the world”, or in relation to item 19, designed to promote advisory services and technical cooperation for human rights issues, singled out developing countries. The Commission approved twice as many resolutions on civil and political rights as it did resolutions on economic, social and cultural rights. Three times as many pages in official documents were devoted to civil and political rights as they were to economic, social and cultural rights. The reason is well-known: it was in the interests of developed countries that the Commission only dealt with civil and political rights. Each year, a handful of developed countries accredited more delegates to work in the Commission on Human rights than did all underdeveloped countries —which represent more than 75 % of the world’s population— together. As a direct consequence of this unjust imbalance, developed countries proposed more than 65% of all resolutions and decisions adopted in each period of sessions, something which did irremediable harm to the respect for diversity proclaimed in the Declaration and the Vienna Action Plan. The work of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was crucial in the preparations for sessions and in following up on the Commission’s decisions. However, the reports presented to the Commission were written — and nearly all of the work of the latter was performed— by officials from industrialized countries who foisted upon it their models, culture, ideology and the concrete historical experience of those who have benefited from an unjust world order which ostracizes the great majority of human beings, whose lot was to be born in the South, and does not allow their talent and their initiative to flourish. Western Europe, the United States and Canada have more staff in the Office of the High Commissioner than all underdeveloped countries together. Human rights are universal, but officials from countries with a per capita Gross Domestic Product which exceeds twenty thousand dollars are not likely to understand these rights as do officials from countries whose per capita GDP does not exceed three hundred dollars. This contradiction becomes, more and more, an insurmountable challenge, and poor nations watch impotently as their intellectuals and professionals swarm to rich countries hoping for better opportunities and chasing impossible dreams. No one in their right mind could say that no human rights violations take place in developed countries; it was impossible, however, to discuss these violations in the Commission. The hands of the Commission on Human Rights were tied as a result of the pressures that some North governments brought to bear on its members. This body, for instance, were not able to review or even to discuss the serious violations by US authorities of the human rights of prisoners, both in the territory illegally occupied by its military base in Guantanamo Bay and in the Abu Ghraib prison and others in occupied Iraq. The inability of the UN's human rights machinery to remedy large-scale, flagrant human rights violations when the violators are citizens of the superpower or of its main allies. The impunity of the powerful. On 26 March 2003, during the 59th session of the Commission on Human Rights, there was a proposal to call a special and urgent session to examine the effects of the war waged by the United States and its closest allies on the Iraqi population. As known, this imperialist war had started a week before, in violation of the most elementary precepts of international law, a show of outright contempt for the will of the international community and the authority of the United Nations, of its Security Council particularly, justified by the grossest of pretexts and lies. The proposal to hold a debate on the matter was backed by Algeria, Burkina Faso, the Russian Federation, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Malaysia, the Arab Republic of Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Zimbabwe; it was submitted for the Commission’s consideration during discussions on agenda item 3, entitled: “Organization of the work of the session”. The request made no attempt to influence the focus and outcome of the debate. It merely asked the Commission to consider and urgently attend to the effects of the war on the Iraqi people. The United States and its allies were quick to react. On behalf of the Group of Western European and other States, Germany turned down the proposal and presented a procedural motion to postpone the debate for 24 hours, invoking the Economic and Social Council Organic Commissions’ rules. The following day, the Syrian Arab Republic, on behalf of the proposal’s co-authors, proceeded to revise it. It requested that the proposal be taken up under agenda item 4 “Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and follow-up to the World Conference on Human Rights”, and orally changed title to the following: “Special Sitting of the 59th period of sessions of the Commission on Human Rights on the human rights and humanitarian situation in Iraq as a result of the war”. Numerous members of the Group of Western European and other States — of which the United States is member— refused to countenance the proposal, defending their position with the most varied, indefensible and shameless pretexts. The proposal was defeated with 25 votes against. Those voting against were the United States, all European Union member countries and their associates, a number of Latin American countries whose governments were dragged into the imperialist adventure and some others who succumbed under pressure from the aggressor. While smart bombs killed and mutilated thousands of innocent civilians and destroyed irreplaceable works of Iraq’s and the world’s cultural heritage, the Commission on Human Rights was gagged and forced to maintain scandalous and cowardly silence. In a display of hypocrisy, the European Union subsequently presented its traditional draft resolution on the situation of human rights in Iraq under item nine of the Commission’s agenda, requesting that the Special Rapporteur present a report to the Commission’s next period of sessions analyzing only those human rights violations which were committed prior to the military invasion, as though the history of a Iraq had come to a standstill that same day. Not one bit of space devoted to monitoring the acts of the empire’s legionaries! Another process which unmasked the hypocrisy and the double standards that characterize the work of the United States and its allies, in the Commission on Human Rights, took place during the 61st session, on April 2005, when Cuba presented the initiative titled “Questions of the arbitrary detentions in the area of the US Naval Base in Guantánamo”. From its very start, the 61st session of the Commission, there was a great expectation around the issue. On Thursday, April 14, in the afternoon, the Cuban delegation registered the draft resolution that circulated under agenda item 3 “Organization of the work of the session”, using the symbol E/CN4/2005/L. 94. This draft had 6 co-authors, that is: Cuba, Belarus, Libya, Venezuela, Syria and the PRD of Korea, members of 4 of the 5 regional groups. Early in the afternoon on Friday April 15, some 200 people –journalists and NGOs representatives, and Governments delegates, including the USA representatives Three open informal consultations were conducted in which the Cuban delegation explained the antecedents and the legal situation of the US Naval Base in Guantánamo and proved that this enclave is under US effective jurisdiction. Attendants learned that it was not a revengeful act or repression against the US, nor was it a resolution seeking to condemn any country, as some had put it. The text addressed a legitimate human right situation on which several NGOs and governments, the international press, several Special Rapporterus from the Commission itself and even the European Parliament had expressed concerns and critiques that the Commission could not ignore. After the official presentation of the text and during the consults, the Cuban draft aroused an atmosphere of strong tension at the Commission, because of the pressures from the US and its Western allies to override the initiative. The delegations of countries members of the European Union attended the consults and took down notes in silence but some joint the urgent pressures of the US delegation, particularly on the Arab, Asian and Latin American delegations The tremendous pressure and blackmail determined the vote: the draft was turned down on registered voting at the US’s request by 8 yes to 22 nays and 23 abstentions. However, those who attended the Commission and in the hallways can attest that the outcome was not in accordance with the tremendous US and EU pressures to increase the number of votes against it. Once again, it showed that there are still countries with dignity and courage enough to demand the truth, even if it is necessary to meet the superpower’s wrath. China, Malaysia, Sudan, South Africa and Zimbabwe sided up with Cuba. Nine Western European countries members of the Commission voted against it, three from Eastern Europe (Germany, Hungary and Romania), four Latin American, three African and three from Asia. The draft resolution, of technical and procedural character was based on the L.88 Rev.2 text, registered in the 60th Session of the HRC. It took into consideration, and was updated, in the light of the following developments: The Joint Communiqué drafted at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the special mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights, issued on 25 June 2004, through which four representatives of the CHR’s special mechanisms made a request to travel to facilities where individuals with supposed ties to terrorist activity are held, in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US Naval Base in Guantánamo. The resolution adopted by the European Parliament in October 2004, demanding an independent investigation in Guantánamo. The Statement on the situation in Guantánamo and elsewhere in the world, dated February 4, 2005, issued by the Chairmen of the HRC Working Groups on the arbitrary detention and forced disappearance and the Special Rapporteurs on torture, health, independence of judges and lawyers and the independent expert on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, in which they mentioned a number of human rights violations by the United States at its Naval Base in Guantanamo. The information provided by representatives of the US Defense Department at meetings with different Regional Groups in Geneva, in which they expressed an alleged commitment to consider the visa requests to visit the detention centers that the government of that country has in the illegally occupied territory of the US Naval base in Guantanamo. The European Union considered to options: to vote in block against the draft, which they finally did on Wednesday April 20 –a day before the voting- or to abstain. This last choice was considered in case the United States has enough votes against from developing countries. They had the cynical purpose of using the votes against from the South countries as screen for their own hypocrisy and cowardice. These countries would take the blame for the defeat of the project. Likewise, it would spur the confrontation between Cuba and those South countries, which they asked to influence the Cuban delegation to withdraw their initiative. After failing in of its attempt at dragging the developing countries to a maneuver against the Cuban project, and Washington’s demand for a total political alignment which would exempt them from their crimes, the UE members were forced to vote against the project. Though the project was rejected in the voting, it scored a victory for truth, reason and justice against the falsehood and power. The North countries gave the coup de grace to the Commission. The double standard they impose on the works of the body had never been so evident. Unfortunately, European Union countries, the rest of Western industrialized countries and for others that cannot hold out against the pressure of the hegemonic superpower by adhering to truth and justice, did not care that the contents of the new initiative were unquestionable from the point of view of law, necessity and ethics. Those who prevented UN human rights mechanisms from investigating and effectively responding to cases of human rights violations, well documented through the international media, are those who are always ready to guarantee Washington’s impunity. They were the same people who, every year, submitted and co-sponsored unjust draft resolutions that condemn various South countries in the Commission on Human Rights, including the futile and spurious anti-Cuba farce directed by the United States. Once again, the so-called international system for the promotion and protection of human rights showed itself incapable of functioning objectively, impartially and in a non-discriminatory manner. The Commission on Human Rights, the Economic and Social Council, the General Assembly and all other UN agencies that attend to human rights have been hijacked and transformed into mere instruments serving the great powers’ lust for domination, something which has become especially evident in the political manipulation of their work by the current US administration. Pressure, threats, conditions and even blackmail continue to be the “arguments” chosen by the United States and its staunchest allies to justify their continued use of these organizations as veritable courts for condemning those who dissent, resist and fight against the plans of world domination hatched in transnational capital’s power centres. The report submitted by the “High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change”, which was set up on the initiative of the UN General Secretary (See Document A/59/565), categorically stated that the “The Commission cannot be credible if it is seen to be maintaining double standards in addressing human rights concerns”. The re-foundation of the HRC became an unpostponable need so that the body to replace it could respond to the challenges and be up to the lofty purposes that motivated its creation. Cuba’s position on the new Human Rights Council The replacement of the Human Rights Commission by a new Human Rights Council will be rendered void, should the process lead not to solve the facts that motivated the crisis of credibility that terminated the Commission. These facts, by the way, do not stem from its format, or its procedures or the size and quality of its membership. They are the result of by some Northern powers’ pernicious political manipulation of the work of the body. These powers turned the Commission in a real court house to punish the South countries and carry out their plans of imperial domination. That the new body is built upon really open, engaging, inclusive and transparent negotiations is a must. Prevalence of the views of a single group, all the most if that group includes those North countries seeking to create a discriminatory Council to use it at will against the interests of the majority, must not be admitted. Those few powers seek to turn the Council into a handy tool to bedevil, punish and put pressure on the South countries. The so-called “Peer Review”, would be meaningless and invalid, if it does not comply with the purpose of radically stopping the practices based on the treatment of item 9 of the CHR agenda –that is only useful to impose sanctions, generally unjust and always favoring the geopolitical interest of domination. It is must to eradicate the double standards and selectivity. It is necessary to promote an approach of cooperation and dialogue. It should be stopped the systematic “blaming and shaming” routine against the developing countries, while guaranteeing full and overall impunity of the North governments. In the past, the CHR served as forum to denounce apartheid, colonialism, and military dictatorships in Latin America and Israel’s abuses in the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine. It has promoted international instruments of transcendental value in the progressive advance of the protection and promotion of human rights. The establishment of the Council must guarantee the continuity of the works of important bodies, mechanisms and procedures that today are subordinated to the CHR, such as the Sub-commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. During the negotiations for the establishment of the Human Rights Council, Cuba stated that the debate and action in terms of human rights have always required a vast participation and representative ness, to become truly democratic and effective. When it was created back in 1946, the Human Rights Commission, with a membership of 18 countries, the United Nations had 59 Member States. Today with 191 Member States, to maintain similar proportion, the recently created body should have at least with 58 members. But beyond that, today, the human rights have become an issue of value and interest for all States. This was the last criterion that led the High Level Panel on threats, challenges and change to suggest the universalization of the membership of this UN human rights body. The main significant decisions in terms of human rights must be adopted by a universal body, that is, the General Assembly. As a subsidiary body of the Assembly, the Council’s mandate must clearly set its subordination to this main body. The Council must guarantee equal treatment, without discrimination whatsoever, to all categories of human rights, particularly the right to development. Cuba participated actively in the negotiations for the establishment of the Human Rights Council and worked hard to try to prevent the serious problems that ruined the HRC’s credibility from being transferred to the new body. Cuba looks forward to working with all governments legitimately committed to the strengthening of a genuine international cooperation in terms of human rights. The Human Rights Council must become the body that people claim, in their aspiration to build a world where human rights are a reality for all. Ranks must be closed to prevent impunity of the political manipulation, confrontation and double standards. Aware that, in the international campaign it wages in the battlefield of ideas, it is representing the interests and hopes of freedom, independence, justice and wellbeing of all the peoples of the world, Cuba will continue to table new initiatives at United Nations fora on human rights to directly confront the hypocrisy, cynicism and opportunism which continues to guide the actions of a majority of North governments within these organizations. Cuba shall not yield in its struggle to make these institutions true defenders of the noble cause of and hopes for justice, development, equality, peace and solidarity, things dearly needed by the vast majority of peoples, who still do not even know that they have rights. APPENDIX: Tables with country-specific resolutions adopted by the Commission on Human Rights in the period between 1996 and 2005 having to do with the agenda items: "Situations of Persistent Violations of Human Rights And Fundamental Liberties In Any Part Of The World" (Item 9) and Advice And Technical Cooperation Services In Human Rights Matters" (Item 19)
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