CHAPTER 6: ANTI-CUBAN MANOEUVRES IN THE HUMAN RIGHTS SPHERE: INVENTING A SPURIOUS PRETEXT TO JUSTIFY THE PERPETUATION OF THE UNITED STATES’ POLICY OF HOSTILITY, BLOCKADE AND AGGRESSION TOWARDS THE CUBAN PEOPLE

In the 1980s, ultra right-wing conservative forces rose to power in the United States. The Santa Fé Document, which was used as an electoral platform and as policy document by the forces that backed then President Ronald Reagan, said in reference to Cuba: “A vigorously and fairly applied program of human rights as the “miraculous” weapon wielded by the United States in confronting the Soviet Union and its satellites and surrogates. Curiously, the current administration (…) has made no serious attempt to apply its human rights doctrine to Castro’s Cuba (…)”

In the context of its new anti-Cuban strategy, the Reagan administration instructed notorious Cuban-American terrorists, directed and financed by the CIA, to change their cover and “become” supposed, groups in favor of peaceful opposition and the defense of human rights. Inside Cuba, various small subversive groups of this kind were created with official US funding which recruited people who were previously involved in violent counterrevolutionary activities and even some former officials and policemen from Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship. Recruitment was focused especially on members of the lumpenproletariat, opportunists, those who felt hard-done-by and the usual annexationists.

In 1985 and 1986 the first failed attempts to have Cuba condemned over its human rights record were made in the Third Commission of the United Nations General Assembly.

The first attempt to achieve something similar in the Commission on Human Rights took place in 1987 when the United States proposed a draft resolution which was unsuccessful when a no-action motion was passed.

In 1988 the United States proposed another draft resolution aimed at singling Cuba out for criticism. This was also unsuccessful because of the positive reception given to the Cuban initiative to invite a mission made up of the Commission’s president and five member state representatives to visit Cuba.

Neither was the United States able to achieve its objective of having Cuba condemned by the Commission in 1989. Several amendments proposed by US diplomats to the draft resolution submitted to the Commission were defeated. The text adopted simply took note of the report drawn up by the mission which visited Cuba and invited the Cuban government to work on implementing its recommendations.

On consolidating itself as the only superpower, after the Soviet Union disintegrated and socialism in Eastern Europe disappeared, in 1990 the United States managed, for the first time, to have a draft resolution condemning Cuba passed in the Commission on Human Rights.

Cuba refused to countenance any kind of cooperation with such an abomination which was malformed from its very conception, motivated by illegitimate interests and the result of brutal pressure and blackmail.

The Cuban people’s principled position, its dignified steadfastness in the face of lies and slander gradually won the respect and support of Commission members and when 1998 arrived, the draft anti-Cuban resolution proposed by the United States was clearly defeated by a vote of 16 in favor and 19 against.

After this unexpected defeat, the United States government buckled down to the task of creating a new image for its anti-Cuban maneuvering in the CHR. Using its traditional methods, it "convinced" the government of the day in the Czech Republic, a country which at the time needed the United States’ support for its application to join NATO, to become the public face of the draft resolution against Cuba in the Commission. Taking on such a degrading task presented no difficulty to the team of opportunists headed by former President Havel; over the years they had learned to obediently carry out Washington’s orders and enjoy its money.

Armed with this new design and applying its usual pressure and blackmail to the fullest, the United States managed to get the anti-Cuban resolution passed from 1999 to 2001 but always with a tiny majority of between one and three votes.

By the end of 2001 it was obvious that this way of working was entering a crisis. The superpower realized that it needed to “spruce up” the image of its anti-Cuban exercise, something that became a strategic necessity after its humiliating exclusion from membership of the Commission as a result of elections by secret ballot held in the Social and Economic Commission.

58TH period of sessions of the CHR (2002)

In the weeks preceding the beginning of the Commission’s 58th period of sessions, Bush administration top officials stepped up their efforts to have one or two Latin American countries propose the anti-Cuban resolution.

The intensity of the pressure exercised by top US officials and the increasing vulnerability and dependence of several Latin American governments —which had very low levels of popular support— on the US helped them to achieve their aim. So President Jorge Batlle of Uruguay was the marionette and gave a public performance of the anti-Cuban script which reflected nothing but the opinions of the Miami terrorist mafia and was written, down to the commas and full stops, in Washington.

In contrast with the submissive position of a few Latin American governments, the peoples in the region unanimously condemned this anti-Cuban maneuver. Not only did they take to the streets to protest in several capital cities but in countries like Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru parliament demanded that the government refuse to follow this line and adopt an independent, dignified position in Geneva.

All the anti-Cuban text forced through the Commission’s 58th period of sessions in 2002 did — those who touted it unsuccessfully attempted to present it as a “new” product with “constructive” approach— was to re-establish an unfair monitoring mechanism of a non-existent human rights situation in Cuba. The worst thing about this case was the decision, which exacerbated the anti-Cuban manipulation conceived by Washington in order to satisfy its lust for domination, to involve none other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in this dirty business.

Representatives of the Cuban-American terrorist mob played an important role in supporting the United States government’s anti-Cuban actions. Making good use of the fact that it has representatives in the U.S. Congress, it became directly involved in the pressure and blackmail exerted on several governments. Similarly, it undertook public diplomacy schemes whose aim was to sell the idea that behind the Bush administration’s actions was a call for action made by what they call “the Cuban exile community”.

59th period of sessions of the CHR (2003)

Washington and Miami’s anti-Cuban mob spokespeople began to take steps to impose a new anti-Cuban resolution at the Commission’s 59th period of sessions early in the year.

On 18 September 2002 eleven congresspeople on the Miami terrorist mob’s payroll headed by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart sent a letter to the then United Nations High Commissioner urging him to get personally involved in the actions against Cuba.

On 13 December of that same year, Ros-Lehtinen sent another letter to the high commissioner ordering him to ask Cuba to release several mercenaries from jail; these were people who had been legitimately imprisoned in Cuba for crimes committed on the orders of the United States government.

At the beginning of January 2003 the undersecretary of state for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman, sent a message to the high commissioner to remind him that he still had not appointed his personal representative for Cuba, adding that the United States thought it extremely important that this be done as soon as possible.

Given the reluctance of the Uruguayan government to play the "leading role" again in the anti-Cuban libretto written in Washington —this was because of the high political price this had cost it in the eyes of the Uruguayan people— the superpower had to exert further pressure on vulnerable Latin American governments, in order to find a new “star”.

Mrs. Poblete, assistant to the anti-Cuban congressperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, went to Geneva at the beginning of January 2003 and had separate meetings with some Latin American diplomatic representatives to explore what they feelings were on the anti-Cuban maneuver orchestrated by the United States, to gauge which in specific areas and subjects each one was most vulnerable and to propose concrete recommendations to boost the effectiveness of the blackmail and conditions which would be worked out later by both the US congress and administration.

At the end of that same month, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky went to several Latin American countries where she met with presidents and foreign ministers, her goal being to coerce them into giving a commitment to propose the anti-Cuban motion at the 59th Commission on Human Rights.

Similarly, US ambassadors in various capital cities, as is traditional, undertook important tasks in support of the anti-Cuban maneuver. They stepped up their anti-Cuban misinformation and manipulative propaganda campaigns, distributing brochures cooked up by the State Department full of “up-dated” lies and distorted “facts”. In addition, with varying degrees of subtlety and transparency —depending on how dependent the government in question is on the United States— they demanded support for what the superpower call its priorities in the Commission on Human Rights and "reminded" them of the bounties that could stem from a good bilateral relation with the hegemonic power.

Showing its usual cynicism and opportunism, President George Bush’s administration unsuccessfully tried to use the fact that Peru was then coordinating the Rio Group, one of the fora for political rapprochement for Latin American and Caribbean countries, to try to oblige them to propose the anti-Cuban draft resolution at the 59th Commission on Human Rights.

After the failure of its attempts to persuade a broader political spectrum to join him in his services to the empire, Washington had to content itself with the Peruvian government’s commitment to present the anti-Cuban draft resolution, conceived and later lobbied for by the United States, at the 59th period of sessions. Peru – a country that has not tended to assume a position against other Latin American countries, at the service of an extra-regional power—Peru’s President Toledo, with the support of the obedient Costa Rican government and then President Batlle of Uruguay, remember by his own people as one of their worst nightmares, had to shoulder direct responsibility for publicly sponsoring the anti-Cuban draft resolution.

As the opening of the Commission’s period of session drew closer, so the United States’ pressures grew stronger. In its anti-Cuban machinations, Washington had the unconditional support of governments which were its allies/clients, particularly that of then President of Spain, José María Aznar, a Fascist booted out of office by the Spanish people because of his servility to Bush and because of the way he continually manipulated and distorted the truth.

To ensure it obtained the votes needed to push its anti-Cuban resolution through the Commission, the Bush administration paid no heed to legal or ethical constraints. Promise of financial "aid" and other benefits for those who delivered their vote rang out from Washington. Nevertheless, the most common practice was not offering something new; what predominated were direct or veiled threats to block loans and grants from international financial institutions which the United States controls, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, to withdraw bilateral trade and immigration concessions and even to make the United States’ treatment of political matters of vital importance to the countries being blackmailed depend on how they voted.

A few days before the vote, the United States markedly increased its efforts to force a change to the text of the anti-Cuban resolution. They wanted to include an explicit condemnation of the fair prison sentences given to the mercenaries working on behalf of its unilateral blockade and aggression policy.

On 18 March 2003 Richard Boucher, spokesperson for the State Department made a statement calling on the Commission to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the arrest of its mercenaries in Cuba.

Once again the superpower decided to work behind the scenes. But this time it had to go up against more complex obstacles. Some Latin American governments which had already committed themselves to either sponsoring or supporting the anti-Cuban resolution decided not to support yet another US maneuver against Cuba. They had been brought to bay by the fact public opinion in their countries was against the war in Iraq and by their fear of popular uprisings if they gave their backing to a new escalation of propaganda which could be used by the superpower as a pretext for a military attack on the Cuban people.

The humiliating mission of proposing the amendment fell to Costa Rica, an amendment cooked up by the United States to create the conditions which would make it more feasible to attack the Cuban people and thus wipe the Cuban Revolution off the map. The only government in Latin American or the Third World which voted for this amendment was the Costa Rican government. Need we say more?

On April 16 Cuba officially tabled two amendments to the anti-Cuban resolution, E/CN.4/l.77. These demand an immediate end to the illegal, unilateral blockade on Cuba and asked the high commissioner to make an evaluation of effects on the Cuban people of terrorist acts against Cuba launched from within US territory.

There was a long procedural debate on these amendments which delayed the discussion and vote on the anti-Cuban resolution by 24 hours. During this debate the United States’ authorship of the amendment presented by Costa Rica was completely unmasked and so the superpower’s ambassador in Geneva had no alternative but to declare that his delegation “would support anything against Cuba”.

In spite of the tremendous pressure brought to bear by the United States, the amendment which tried to condemn Cuba was defeated in the Commission when it was rejected by an overwhelming majority of countries. Only 15 countries voted for the amendment while 31, more than twice as many, voted against.

This result dealt a heavy blow to Washington and to the Cuban-born, annexationist terrorist mob. This is the same mob which, when the unilateral attack by the US Empire on Iraq began, in the only public demonstration in support of this illegal war in any city in the world, which - It just had to be Miami – shouted an out-and-out incitement to aggression: "Iraq now, Cuba next”

The Cuban amendment condemning the US blockade as a serious human rights violation did not pass. The same group of European and Latin American governments which cynically and hypocritically claims to be worried about a non-existent human rights situation in Cuba —voting in favor of and cosponsoring the anti-Cuban resolution in Geneva— showed that they didn’t have the required dignity or respect for justice to condemn the genocidal blockade imposed by the United States on the Cuban people in violation of its basic human rights, including the right to life itself.

The governments that are accomplices of and subordinate to the Empire in its anti-Cuban maneuver at the Commission on Human Rights were shown to be naked in their new clothes of double moral standards, hypocrisy and submission to Washington and to its hopes of crushing the Cuban nation.

After the amendments failed to pass, the anti-Cuban draft resolution E/CN.4/L.2 was voted on and passed by a narrow margin of four votes (24 in favor, 20 against and 9 abstentions). This was in spite of the fact that the United States had had an extra 24 hours for its brutal pressure to do its work.

The anti-Cuban resolution (E/CN.4/RES/2003/13), although it did not meet all expectations, ensured that the United States government would be able to continue with its anti-Cuban machinations in the Commission’s work. As well as keeping the subject on the Commission’s agenda, it managed to consolidate the mechanism of the high commissioner’s so-called personal representative thus providing its anti-Cuban crusade with the services of an official who would list and repeat the lies cooked up in Washington and Miami and, why not say so, those invented with Uncle Sam’s money in other places like Prague and Warsaw.

60th period of sessions of the CHR (2004)

Looking ahead to the Commission’s 60th period of sessions, held in 2004, the United States, from quite early on, availed itself of every opportunity to put pressure on various governments in the interests of its anti-Cuban machinations. Among other things, this included visits by various undersecretaries of state, especially the State Department’s Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, to Latin American and Eastern European capitals.

Two delegations of congress people were also dispatched to these latitudes on the same mission. The Cuban-born mobster, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican congressperson for Florida was a member of one of the delegations. These aforementioned efforts were supplemented by several tours of and visits to Latin American countries by the former White House Special Ambassador for Latin America, the protector of terrorists and staunch anti-Cuban, Otto Reich and by Jesse Helm’s former collaborator, also an anti-Cuban, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega.

Once this first phase of political and diplomatic pressures was completed, the politicos in Washington convinced themselves that the only countries which could be coerced to publicly propose the anti-Cuban motion in the 60th CHR were one or more of those in Central America or Eastern and Central Europe. Although they found both options equally unattractive in terms of image — quite a few Central American and Eastern and Central European governments are perceived by world public opinion to be clients of the Empire— they opted for Central America.

Notwithstanding anything that could be said about them, Central American governments have the comparative advantage of belonging to the Latin American family. Thus, if one or more Central American governments takes a public stance against Cuba in Geneva, this would allow the United States’ powerful disinformation machine to present its anti-Cuban maneuvering as a concern that has arisen in the heart of "Cuba’s own region".

The United States then buckled down to the task of trying to coerce Central American governments as a group to public sponsor the anti-Cuban motion in the 60th CHR. However, in addition to the principled rejection of more than one government —they knew that such an escalation in anti-Cuban actions would be met with enormous public repudiation and would seriously affect bilateral relations with Cuba— Washington came up against a hurdle that it was unable to surmount, its pressure and blackmail notwithstanding.

The United States government, after the defeat at the 59th CHR of the amendment proposed by Costa Rica on its orders, needed to be sure that a critical reference to Cuba for legally jailing several dozen mercenaries on the payroll of United States Interests Section in Havana was included in the very first and all other versions of the anti-Cuban resolution to be submitted to the 60th CHR. Some Central American governments refused to publicly co-submit an anti-Cuban motion if it were so amended.

Faced with this state of affairs, Washington abandoned the strategy of having the sub-region as a whole propose the anti-Cuban resolution and concentrated its pressure on the most vulnerable and dependent Central American governments. The strategy was to be that of initially sacrificing the public prestige and credibility of one government —which would be condemned to play the role of principal author— with other co-sponsors joining one by one as they succumbed to the threat of the superpower’s big stick.

The government which played the sad role of being the main sponsor the anti-Cuban motion in the 60th CHR (2004) will be identified below. As it is only logical to conclude, this task fell to a government - later dishonorably and painstakingly used by its own people - with one of the worst human rights records in the hemisphere. Just a hint; it is a government that has not even been able to put an end to the impunity given to the systematic practice of extrajudicial executions of dozens of its children.

A meeting of Congress’s International Relations Committee was held in March 2004 to give backing to the pressure being applied by the White House and the State Department; it had been summoned by the Cuban-born mob’s representative in the US Congress, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Diplomats from several Latin American countries were invited to the meeting; they had to listen to Ros-Lehtinen’s voice telling them what were the aims that had to be accomplished by the anti-Cuban resolution over there in Geneva. The mob moll turned Congressperson said clearly that one or two paragraphs condemning Cuba more explicitly had to be added to the text of the resolution passed the previous year.

The empire’s client regime installed in Prague once again played its role as peddler in the lucrative business of the Cuban counterrevolution. Politicos and diplomats of the puppet Czech Republic ran around several world capitals like really bad actors—making good use of the money bounteously dispensed by the Superpower— rehashing the anti-Cuban libretto written in Washington with the help of some Miami residents. It must be kept in mind that former President Havel had had the great honor of having been "paid homage" in that Florida city by the highest representatives of the terrorist anti-Cuban mob. In February and March, when he visited some Latin American and African countries, Deputy Foreign Minister Vosalik, one of the people hired for this job, was involved in various machinations against the Cuban Revolution.

Mindful of the accuracy and effectiveness of denunciations made by Cuba, the United States fine tuned its efforts and demanded complete secrecy from its accomplices during the preparations for its anti-Cuban maneuvers in Geneva. It was asking for the impossible: the creation of an illusion that the anti-Cuban resolution in the Commission on Human Rights was the outcome of genuine concern on the part of the international community.

Reality once again dealt Washington a hard blow in the Commission’s 60th period of sessions. The American authorship of the anti-Cuban resolution was obvious as never before, they hadn’t allowed even a comma of the original to be changed. Never before had US diplomats been so public in applying pressure to obtain the necessary votes and the signatures of the collaborator countries dragged into cosponsoring.

In order to guarantee complete compartmentalization of information about the gestation period of this anti-Cuban monster and to make it easier to twist arms — not even the slightest difference of opinion over the final product was permitted— the text of the anti-Cuban resolution was drafted under the strictest secrecy in Washington.

The Empire’s task of naming the public sponsor of the anti-Cuban resolution at the 60th CHR had been made easier by one of its most faithful servants: José María Aznar. Mr. Aznar had once again played the role of procurer for Washington in its anti-Cuban maneuverings. During the Summit for the Heads of State of Central America and Spain in Madrid, he, on 5 March, made a direct request to Honduran president Ricardo Maduro that his country propose the anti-Cuban motion in Geneva. This was a special favor President Bush would be grateful for.

On March 9th, 2004 in Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell directly demanded that the Honduran president accept responsibility for officially registering the resolution censuring Cuba in the 60 CHR. In exchange, Powell promised that the United States would consider Honduras for inclusion among the countries to receive the few crumbs of financial aid it has promised to hand out under what it was calling the Millennium Initiative.

When he returned to Honduras, ex President Maduro announced this promised US aid but kept secret the condition that went with it: that of giving up the sovereign right to decide what actions the Honduran State would take at the United Nations and worse yet, to play the humiliating part in Geneva of chief accomplice to the attack on the truth and justice that the Cuban people are demanding.

A meeting was held in State Department headquarters on 24 March at which Marc Grossman, undersecretary for political affairs, told diplomats from several countries who had been invited that Honduras would be the “chief sponsor” of the anti-Cuban resolution at the 60th CHR. Grossman’s assistants immediately distributed the English text of the resolution. Then, the Honduran ambassador was allowed to speak. Timidly, he merely confirmed announcement that had been made. Visibly nervous at having been placed in a humiliating, embarrassing situation, he uttered a few stammered, incoherent words and asked for backing for the resolution.

While all of the above was going on behind the scenes, the report of the personal representative, so-called, of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had been officially distributed.

Mrs. Christine Chanet who has, up until now, occupied this spurious post created by virtue of anti-Cuban resolution E/CN.4/RES/2002/18 forced through the 58th period of sessions of the CHR submitted her first written report to the 60th CHR.

The document was — and could not have been otherwise, given the information sources used, the pressure applied by the United States and those countries who supported its hostile policies towards the Cuban people, not to mention the unjust reasons that motivated its drafting— yet another example of anti-Cuban libel, devoid of objectivity, which, when it came down to it, simply gave credit to the false allegations made up by those expert liars who work for the CIA, the Sate Department and the Miami anti-Cuban terrorist mob.

The soi-disant personal representative found herself singing the sad anti-Cuban libretto created for her by the United States and its accomplices. In an international system of human rights which is obviously the object of thorough-going political manipulation for the purposes of world domination, any expert who values her or his credibility and impartiality should carefully examine the nature of and circumstances surrounding the responsibility she or he is offered before accepting or acting on it — although it is never too late to reconsider and act honestly.

So anyone who accepts the anti-Cuban mandate created by Commission resolution 2002/18, a mechanism thought up by the Superpower to invent pretexts for continuing with its policy of hostility, genocidal blockade and aggression towards the Cuban people should never, ever expect to be respectfully or considerately treated by Cubans.

The conclusions and recommendations in the soi-disant personal representative’s report are exact replicas, photocopies of the demands the hegemonic Superpower made of the Cuban people with the aim of destroying its process of revolutionary transformations and of forcing it back into the servile position of neo-colonial vassalage under which it suffered for more than 50 years after the Island was militarily occupied by the forces of the then nascent US imperialism.

The soi-disant personal representative went along with the Bush administration’s and the Miami mob’s henchmen by asking Cuba: that its government interfere with and set aside just decisions taken by courts following due process and existing laws when judging acts classified as serious crimes; that it release and extend de facto impunity to a group of mercenaries paid by the Superpower who acted to the detriment of their own country when accomplishing missions for that Superpower; that it amend laws and constitutional principles voted for in a referendum by an overwhelming majority of the Cuban people who were exercising their right to sovereignty and self-determination; that it allow people from other countries working for the hostile anti-Cuban policy of the US imperial power circles and the Miami mob to enter Cuba on missions financed, partially, by the $59,000,000 which Washington  assigned to the Annexation Plan on May 2004 to encourage acts aimed at annihilating the Cuban constitutional system.

The Bush administration, once it had resolved the problem of who would dirty their hands by undertaking to publicly sponsor the anti-Cuban resolution at the 60th CHR did not let up on its maneuvering for even a second. Its representatives launched themselves into a whirl of anti-Cuban activity the minute the Commission opened its doors in Geneva.

The United States refused to allow any negotiation over the anti-Cuban resolution drafted in Washington and forced the Honduran representatives to hurry up and register it officially with the 60th CHR secretary. It refused to give countries who had become its accomplices either by supporting or cosponsoring the anti-Cuban resolution even the tiniest opportunity to propose even a change to the punctuation in the anti-Cuban text.

Even though it had not consulted them nor taken them into account, the hegemonic Superpower began to push the members of its cohort, one by one, into cosponsoring the resolution censuring Cuba. The usual bunch began to add their names to the list: former colonial powers fallen on hard times and today occupying the sorry position of obedient second class "partners", servile and sub-imperialist "allies" who feed their lust for domination by acting as sub-regional guard dogs for Washington’s aggressive policy; some client regimes — in the region the Superpower looks on as its own backyard— which are still in existence against the will of their people and others who simply did not have the courage to stand up to Washington’s pressure.

On 2 April 2004, at 6:00 pm Geneva time, the Honduran delegation filed the anti-Cuban draft resolution. US representatives oversaw every detail of the operation. In order to “share out” and lessen the public humiliation that it had imposed on the Honduran government — a country which had never shown any interest in submitting any kind of draft resolution for the CHR’s consideration— Washington promised the authorities in Tegucigalpa that it would obtain the signatures of such "independent and committed” governments to the cause of human rights as those of Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Czech Republic and Australia.

Boasting of it long experience in the field and its active role in the search for cosponsors and support notwithstanding, the leading actor decided to continue working from the shadows. Reaching the height of cynicism and cheek, Washington chose to not put its name on the list of those who were responsible for drafting the anti-Cuban resolution.

The text of the resolution, — were if not for the serious threat stemming from the headway made by the motivations behind it— would deserve to become an object lesson for politicians and diplomats interested in developing the art of useless rhetoric and that of using a lot of words to say very little.

Nevertheless, it is important to understand the danger presented by such a subtle trick. The anti-Cuban maneuvering in the Commission on Human Rights is illegitimate and unacceptable to our people and to anyone in the world who loves truth and reason, not only because of the wording of the resolution which is forced down the Commission’s throat so as to institutionalize it but more especially due to its motivations. It makes it easier to fabricate a pretext which gives continuity to the unilateral hostile policy of blockade and aggression which successive US administrations have imposed on Cuba for over forty years.  This hostility and aggression is now reaching even more dangerous levels when “a regime change” in any country which does not submit to US imperialism is now Washington’s official policy.

The resolution censuring Cuba forced through the 60th CHR did not have even the tiniest passing reference to the US policy of hostility, blockade and aggression towards the Cuban people which is the only mass, systematic, serious and constant source of violation of the human rights of Cuban men and women. So how could anyone expect that such a document recognize or endorse the Cuban people’s right to adopt measures enshrined in law to protect its independence, its self determination and to ensure that the social, economic and political system sovereignty chosen to build a future filled with welfare, social justice and solidarity for all is well defended?

The anti-Cuban resolution was passed by the ridiculous margin of one vote, the votes being 22 in favor and 21 against and 10 abstentions. Such a result was a Pyrrhic victory for the Superpower whose henchmen had applied the strongest most brutal pressure on governments of developing countries. As a corroboration of the growing weakness and bad reputation of the anti Cuban maneuvering in Geneva, the resolution received more votes against that ever before and had 2 votes in favor less than in 2003.

In order to make sure that the anti-Cuban resolution in Geneva was passed, the United States government delegation at the 60th CHR was “reinforced” with people who have years of experience in applying hostile anti-Cuban policies and in wielding the big stick against southern governments. One of these was Frank Almaguer, a shady Cuban-born fellow.

Almaguer was Washington’s ambassador in Tegucigalpa from 1999 to 2002. Before that, he had been involved in other instances of interference and interventionism in Central America and other Latin American countries, carrying out his missions behind the humanitarian façade of the Peace Corps, so called, and USAID.

Never before had the ties between a US administration and the most reactionary and aggressive elements of the anti-Cuban terrorist mob from Miami been so obvious. And to crown their insolence and their contempt for the Commission, Washington accredited Luis Zúñiga Rey, an infamous Cuban-born terrorist as a member of its delegation to the CHR’s 60th period of sessions.

Zúñiga Rey was arrested in 1974 and sentenced by the courts when he illegally entered Cuba from the United States carrying arms and explosives. He was part of a CIA operation that was to carry out several terrorist acts. When he was released and returned to the United States, he took charge of the paramilitary wing of the Cuban American National Foundation and was involved in organizing and financing bomb attacks on Cuban hotels in Havana and in other terrorist actions against Cuban hospitals.

The special rapporteur’s report on the use of mercenaries given at the CHR’s 56th period of sessions contained information that Zúñiga Rey recruited the Guatemalan citizen Percy Francisco Alvarado Godoy to make a study of areas in Cuba, such as hotels, electricity generating stations and oil refineries that were vulnerable and susceptible to terrorist attacks.

Zúñiga Rey the terrorist took part in the debates in the CHR’s 60th period of sessions from the benches of none other than the Superpower which claims to be committed to and encouraging the fight against terrorism.

The Cuban-born terrorist mob which lives in the United States working in collusion with the Bush administration which gives it shelter and power pulled the threads in its web of influence so it could send US congresspeople who had been the beneficiaries of its “generous” financial contributions to join in the anti-Cuban farce in Geneva.

Chris Smith, Republican representative for New Jersey, one of the states which gives shelter to groups of Cuban-born terrorists such as Alpha 66 and Comandos L —the other is Florida—wandered through Geneva halls and passages lobbying for support for the anti-Cuban resolution and threatening those who said no with reprisals. Mr. Smith was helped by Mrs. Poblete, assistant to Cuban-born congressperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who is infamous for her part in Elián González’ kidnapping and her active role in trying to have the genocidal blockade on the Cuban people stepped up.

In their attempts to push the anti-Cuban resolution through at any cost, the minions of imperial power resorted to the extremely small-minded threats.

They reminded the Central Americans that they could send back hundreds of thousands of their countries’ émigrés who work in the United States and stop them from sending family remittances to their countries of origin.

They threatened some African countries with taking the benefits of the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) away from them —the AGOA is a US law which allows some African exports privileged access to the US market.

They tried to intimidate other countries from several other regions by sketching out a typical blackmail scenario. They were told that their refusal to vote for the anti-Cuban resolution could make them the object of a resolution of censure. The imperial government even went so far as to promise those who bowed to their anti-Cuban demands that it would use its “good offices” to discourage any attempt to censure that country, fully aware that these censorious maneuvers in the Commission are always set in motion in the interests of industrialized powers.

Several countries from various regions were asked to vote for the anti-Cuban resolution or at least to abstain and in exchange the United States would not block a loan from the International Monetary Fund where the United States has a de facto veto right.
On 14 April 2004, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega confirmed that the White House had made contact with some Latin American and European countries asking them to support the anti-Cuban resolution. He said that even President Bush himself was getting personally involved by making telephone calls and gave as an example the conversation with President Fox.

The assistant secretary for international organizations in the State Department, Kim Holmes, publicly said that the United States was fighting hard, talking to several countries to get them to support the anti-Cuban resolution.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed that the Secretary of State and other State Department officials had been making phone calls to countries that were members of the Commission to identify the United States’ most important interests in the human rights sphere and urging them to vote accordingly.

Sometimes the pressure applied was so outrageous that news of it leaked out. One such case was that of the Dominican Republic when Hipólito Mejía was president. The latter had indicated to Cuban authorities that he would abstain from voting on the anti-Cuban resolution. His commitment remained firm until the evening of 14 April when less than 12 hours remained for the vote in Geneva when a surprised Cuban government learned that the Dominican Republic would join those voting against Cuba.

Hipólito Mejía said publicly in Miami that he had been receiving phone calls from US Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega and from the man who was then president Bush’s special envoy for the Americas the anti-Cuban Otto Reich pressuring him about the vote on the anti-Cuban resolution in Geneva.

In Latin America in particular there is a clear correlation between the degree of sovereignty, dignity and popularity of a government and the chances that Washington’s pressure and blackmail to coerce support or co-sponsorship for the anti-Cuban resolution will be successful.

Those governments in the region which are experiencing corruption and fraud scandals and have very little popular support, those which are extremely dependent on Washington for financial assistance and for validation of their repression of their discontented popular sectors, those which represent the selfish interests of transnational capital’s client oligarchies are those most likely to bend their knee to the anti-Cuban orders of the Superpower and disregard the will of their respective peoples.

The list of servile “statesmen and women” in the region would include people of the “political stature” of former presidents Menem (who became a millionaire thanks to the honest way he performed his exalted task) and Batlle (the former Uruguayan president who ended his term in office with the lowest level of popular support in the history of his country and who gave continued impunity to those who had committed serious human rights violations such as extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances and torture).

If the way the United States behaved in Geneva were really motivated by a desire to protect human rights in Latin America, it would not force its spurious and unjustified anti-Cuban resolution down the Commission’s throat. On the contrary, it would submit for the Commission’s consideration two draft resolutions against those Latin American governments that co-sponsor and support the anti-Cuban resolution.

And the foregoing is not mere rhetoric. This thesis is based on the reports that the State Department drafts every year on the human rights situation in every country in the world with, of course, the exception of the United States. The State Department’s report contains concrete facts and value judgments on the governments that co-sponsor their anti-Cuban maneuverings which far surpass the seriousness of the false allegations about Cuba.

Whereas reports issued in successive years do not include a single reference to grave and flagrant human rights violations in Cuba, they do document tens, even hundreds and thousands of cases of the torture, forced disappearances, extra-judicial executions —even of children— political assassinations of journalists and lawyers, forced evictions, corruption and fraud in governments and courts, malnourishment and illiteracy and complete impunity and hopelessness which victimize the peoples governed by those who join in the attack in Geneva on the dignity of Cuban men and women.

The government of Honduras, following the orders of the Bush administration, agreed to be the public sponsor of the anti-Cuban draft resolution at the 60th CHR (2004), going openly against the will of its people.

Many important Honduran political and artistic figures and intellectuals, non-governmental organizations, friendship associations from various regions of the country and even some of the major newspapers, such as La Prensa, La Tribuna, Tiempo and El Heraldo published correspondence, statements, articles and letters condemning the anti-Cuban decision taken by President Maduro and criticizing the way he behaved at the United States’ behest.

The Honduran National Commissioner on Human Rights Ramón Custodio raised his voice in the name of the Honduran people during the debates of the Commission on Human Rights 60th period of sessions to condemn the attitude of his government and to dissociate the people of his country from such loathsome anti-Cuban maneuver.

Only a few days after the Commission on Human Rights 60th period of sessions ended, on 6 May 2004 to be precise, President Bush announced the implementation of new measures aimed at stepping up the blockade and at destroying the constitutional order sovereignly chosen by the Cuban people in a referendum.

Since the Bush administration came to power with the enthusiastic support of the most extreme elements in Miami, the United States has been carrying out new attacks and implementing more measures to artificially create a crisis situation in Cuba.

The first chapter of the report drafted by the commission created by President Bush to hasten the so-called “regime change” in Cuba, published 6 May, which was updated and extended with additional measures in 2006, identifies two tasks directly connected to the Commission on Human Rights: the organization of a broad disinformation campaign abroad and encouragement for the international isolation of the Revolution with efforts involving other actors and manipulating spaces offered by multilateral organizations.

The executive summary of the same chapter of the document that President Bush made his own says, with no beating around the bush, that fomenting anti-Cuban maneuverings in international organizations was an especially important tool for contributing to the "policy of hastening the end of the Castro regime". It specifically recommended “increasing support for human rights monitoring”.

Working towards his re-election in 2004, Bush continued to enthusiastically cultivate the support of all those who, for decades, have taken part in the most brutal plans and actions aimed at destroying the Cuban Revolution, including representatives of terrorist groups based on U.S. soil.

Bush visited Florida again a few days before the elections. On Sunday 31 October, at a ceremony held in this state in which numerous terrorists and declared enemies of the Cuban Revolution participated, Bush declared: “over the next four years we’ll keep the pressure on so that the gift of freedom can finally arrive to the men and women of Cuba”. He added: “we won’t rest, we’ll keep the pressure up until the Cuban people enjoys the same freedoms in Havana which they receive here in the United States”.

A few months later, at the Commission’s 61st period of sessions, Cuba would once again confront a new ignoble chapter of the political manipulation undertaken by the U.S. government in Geneva every year, with the frustrated aim of discrediting the process of revolutionary transformations which is underway in Cuba since 1959. The Bush administration knows of no ethical or legal criterion when it comes to pursuing its shameful anti-Cuban aims. The pressures and the blackmail would, on this occasion, prove even more blatant.

61st period of sessions of the CHR (2005)

In November 2004, a mere 48 hours had gone by since President Bush’s re-election, when the aggressive and militaristic clique whose power had been given a surprising boost in the recently held imperial elections rushed to make sure that its hostile blockade policy towards Cuba would suffer no changes.

On 4 November 2004, the State Department issued a press notice entitled: “Cuba: Human Rights Situation”, which repeated several of the lies, slanders and false accusations that have been the basis of the anti-Cuban campaign waged by the United States over human rights issues.

The imperial press notice once again uses a distorted version of what happened in March 2003, when the Cuban government and courts found themselves obliged to act and apply the law to neutralize the criminal act of mercenaries who —paid and controlled by the US Interests Section in Havana— attempted to destroy the Cuban people’s chosen constitutional order. Washington’s anti-Cuban edict described this end to impunity for those who break the law as a “sweeping crackdown on independent civil society activists”.

The State Department told barefaced lies once again. By virtue of laws which existed before the crimes were committed, the ordinary Cuban civil courts sentenced not activists, much less independent, men and women but annexationist mercenaries who accepted orders and generous salaries from the United States government and perpetrated illegal acts inside Cuba to foster the Superpower’s policy of blockade and aggression towards our homeland. Conspiring with a foreign power is a crime in any country in the world, including the United States.

Washington’s reinforced hostility against Cuba and the manipulation of the human rights issue to that end became more evident in the letter sent by Bush to the organizers of the anti-Cuban seminar that took place in Miami, on November 2004, sponsored by the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies of Miami University and the Czech Embassy. In that letter, he reaffirmed his commitment to support every action that would contribute to the goal of ultimately destroying Cuban Revolution.

It was not accidental that this letter was published in the aftermath of the re-election of the president in polls where he was favored by the culture of fear, which has been imposed on the US people. Bush meant to reiterate his support to the ever-loyal terrorist and anti-Cuban mafia based in Miami.

The big-shots of the Miami mafia and the mercenaries serving the anti-Cuban policies within the Island promptly publicized their satisfaction for the re-election of the republican Administration. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, congressman with a solid anti-Cuban record said: “Those elections had indeed closed all the roads for Castro”.
Camila Ruiz, one of the leaders of the terrorist Cuban American National Foundation announced: "We are pleased to be able to continue working with President Bush’s administration for a change in Cuba". The preferred “democratic” methods of the Foundation are, among other things, bombing hotels, assassination plots against President Fidel Castro and sabotages against economic targets in Cuba.

The United States tried to replay in 2005 the scheme they had used in previous years, by instructing a third country or group of countries to introduce the anti-Cuban draft. They were counting, to force a brand-new introducer of the resolution, on the subordination and the deep dependency towards its hegemonic policy of some Central American governments and Eastern Europe.

The Bush Administration exerted great pressure on the Central American countries in order to force them to introduce the anti-Cuban draft as a "joint initiative" of the sub-region. Nevertheless, their efforts were not successful. Honduras refused to repeat the pitiful role it had played the previous year and other governments of the region also rejected to assume that task.

It was then that United States decided to take over and introduce a draft that had always been theirs. On the other hand, Washington had come to the conclusion that by publicly appearing as main sponsor, they could stop the steady decline of the voting pattern.

The Bush Administration profited from the high degree of subordination towards its anti-Cuban policy of several countries members of the European Union, interested in mending the damage caused to its relations with the superpower after having timidly questioned American invasion to Iraq. The European Union tailed after Washington as they unconditionally supported the anti-Cuban exercise in the 61st CHR. Several governments of Eastern and Central Europe stood out as pawns advocating the policies of United States within the Union.

Like the previous year, the United States discreetly exerted pressure to have the anti-Cuban draft adopted, concentrating its efforts in Washington and the capitals of the countries members of the CHR. 

In its anti-Cuban lobby, not only did the United States work to gain the vote in support of its draft resolution, but also requested the rejection of the members to whatever initiative of procedural character that might be introduced by the Cuban delegation.

The anti-Cuban witch-hunt unleashed by the United States included efforts and pressures that involved even President Bush and the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

In September 2004, the representative of the United States to ECOSOC, Ambassador Sichan Siv, toured the Persian and Arabic Gulf region with the objective of engaging support to the initiatives that the North American government would promote in the forthcoming CHR. In the Press conference he attended during that tour, Sichan Siv criticized the presence in the CHR of countries like Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

On September 15, 2004, an article by Europe Press titled "For the freedom of the prisoners of conscience in Cuba", revealed that the FAES Foundation, chaired by the Spanish fascist Jose Maria Aznar, had organized a meeting in defense of the mercenaries convicted in Cuba because of serving the anti-Cuban policies of the government of the United States. The Secretary of International Relations of the Spanish People’s Party, Jorge Moragas; the president of the Spanish Association Cuba in Transition, Rafael Rubio; and the Cuban-born terrorist Carlos Alberto Montaner, attended the event.

Events of Cuban propaganda, summoned with the money and the sponsorship of Washington also they took place In the Czech Republic. From September 17 to 19, 2004, the so-called “International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (CIDC) and the government-sponsored Czech organization "People in Need” held a meeting titled "Towards Democracy in Cuba", in the seat of the Senate in Prague. The media show was attended, with US Government funding, by the former president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, by the former president of the Spanish Government, the ousted Jose Maria Aznar, and by Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former US Ambassador to the UN, in the heat of Cold War.

In Latin America anti-Cuban pressures also were exerted with full imperial force. Several Latin American ambassadors accredited to Washington were summoned in March to a round table on the 61st CHR that was held in the seat of US Congress. Cuban-born congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, compelled, with her traditional blackmailing style, the presence of several diplomatic representatives of the region.

Outstanding pressures were exerted on the governments of Mexico and Guatemala.

In the case of Guatemala, the media reported that on the occasion of the visit to that country of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on March 2005, he demanded the Guatemalan vote in favor of the anti-Cuban resolution as a prerequisite to lift the military ban imposed by Washington and to release the grant of 3,2 US million dollars, which the Guatemalan government had been promised for its Air Force, the maintenance of military bases, plus training and equipment for the military who would participate in international peace-keeping operations.

In the week from April 4 to 6, the Deputy Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean of the USAID, Adolfo Franco, visited Argentina with the objective to attain the vote of that country in favor of the anti-Cuban project. Furthermore, Franco requested the Argentine Foreign Ministry Chancellery to open the doors of its Embassy in Havana to the mercenaries serving US anti-Cuban policies.

In Mexico, the pressures were focused directly on the Foreign Minister Derbez, interested in obtaining the approval of Washington to be able to be placed to take over the Chair of its so-called Ministry of Colonies - the Organization of American States. Guided by his ambition and his eagerness for prominence, Derbez committed the vote against Cuba, in exchange for American support to his aspiration to the General Secretariat of the O.A.S. The year before, Derbez had obtained the approval of the Bush Administration to an eventual vote of Mexico in support to the resolution on Guantánamo - provided it maintained his vote against Cuba unalterable. Its vote was decisive in the case of the anti-Cuban maneuver. In the case of Guantánamo, after ensuring the complicity the European Union, Washington could do without the Mexican vote without much cost.

On April 7, 2005, in an interview of the then US Under¨-Secretary of State for Latin America, Roger Noriega, to CNN channel in Spanish, he indicated that their main goal was to maintain the subject of Cuba in the agenda of the Commission and that the United States would go to any length to obtain it.

The United States extended their pressures to countries that were not members of the Commission, with the objective to increase the number of cosponsors of the draft.

To be able to achieve their objectives, the United States resorted again to the services of the Personal Representative for Cuba of the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Human Rights, Mrs. Christine Chanet.

Mrs. Chanet presented her second report to the 61st session of the CHR. This document repeated in its basic lines the one that she had presented in 2004. Of course, nor a letter was dedicated in the text to honor the memory of the Cuban victims of the terrorism promoted and allowed by the Government of the United States. Not a word of sympathy was written for the relatives of the Five Heroes of the antiterrorist fight who remain kidnapped in American jails.

In her anti-Cuban pamphlet, Mrs. Chanet echoed the lies fabricated by US authorities and the terrorist and anti-Cuban Miami-based mafia, intended to impose “a change of regime in the Island” and to deprive the Cuban people of the exercise of its sacred right to self-determination.

The premises of Mrs. Chanet serve the intentions of the superpower and the former colonial metropolis to impose on the international cooperation in the promotion of democracy, the human rights, rules and patterns that favor their schemes of domination.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Chanet has been playing a despicable role associated to the discharge of a spurious mandate, conceived and imposed by the United States, in order to facilitate a pretext to the intensification of its policy of aggressions and annexation against the Cuban nation.

Mrs. Chanet should resign to continue carrying out a mandate designed to support blatant intentions of imperial conquest and domination. As long as she remains discharging those functions, she should not expect nothing from the Cuban people, but the loathing and scorn that deserve all those who collaborate with the attacking power.  

Once the session started, the United States again refused to change a single comma of the anti-Cuban draft resolution previously drawn in Washington. The European Union and others were forced to endorse a document on which they were not consulted whatsoever.

On April 12, shortly before the deadline for registration (3:00 PM, Geneva time) the US delegation officially tabled its draft resolution with 37 cosponsors (the 25 members of the European Union, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Monaco, Albania, Israel, Croatia, Japan, Rumania, Australia and Canada, in addition to the U.S.  Other countries, mostly from the North subsequently joined the initial sponsors. The superpower, stopping at nothing to raise the number of sponsors of the anti-Cuban scheme, ridiculously brought in the signature in Washington of 2 small Island States, whose foreign policy is subordinated to the United States – Palau and Marshall Islands - and then sent their signatures to Geneva. The total number of sponsors amounted to 44 countries. 

The anti-Cuban draft met the basic goals that the United States had set out: to give continuity to the anti-Cuban exercise; to ensure headlines throughout its media monopoly censuring Cuba and to keep alive the pretext for the escalation of their anti-Cuba hostility and aggressiveness.

The text enforced in the voting has three preamble paragraphs and two operative paragraphs. It did not include an explicit condemnation of Cuba, in order to ensure the minimal number of votes required for its adoption and the highest possible sponsorship.

As expected, the resolution does not make the slightest reference to the blockade and other aspects of the policy of hostility of United States against the Cuban people. It does not acknowledge either the new outbreak of the measures against Cuba decreed by President Bush in May 2004.

The resolution was adopted on April 14, 2005, with a vote of 21 in favor, 17 against and 10 abstentions.  The pattern of votes reflected a distinct polarization North-South, with the exception of few Latin American countries, which because of their subordination and vulnerability towards Washington, joined as accomplices its anti-Cuban policy.

The pressures exerted by the United States were particularly brutal in the 24-48 hours that preceded the voting. Only two days before the vote, according to the intentions of vote informed to our representatives, the resolution would have been defeated or adopted by a much narrower margin.

On April 19, 2005, Mr. Christopher Smith, Chairman of the Subcommittee of Africa, Human Rights and International Operations of the Foreign Relations Committee of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, admitted at a hearing of the Committee that he chairs, that the adoption of the resolutions against Cuba and Belarus in the CHR required a full-fledged deployment of the US delegation, in addition to personal requests of president Bush to the presidents of the Ukraine and Mexico.

To be able to attain its objective, the United States threatened to block the negotiations of resolutions in United Nations, with restricting the imports from certain commodities to North American territory and/or to remove the benefits of the US African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA).

The Washington regime threatened and conditioned its aid to several governments in strategic subjects that had a vital significance for the national security of his associates, like the possibility of acquiring brand-new US armaments, the support to these governments to control the opposition during the elections and even in subjects related to border conflicts. The threats included the potential suppression of financial aid from the World Bank and other international financial organizations.

In order to reinforce the Cuban lobbying in Geneva, the delegation of the United States once again formed a Task Group that included the Head of Delegation, Mr. Rudy Boschwitz, US Ambassador in Geneva, Mr. Kevin Moley, and the US Ambassador to ECOSOC, Mr. Sichav Siv.

Other participants in the anti-Cuban efforts were the Republican congressman from New Jersey, Mr. Chris Smith, and Mr. Michael Kozak, former Head of the Cuban Bureau of the Department of State and USINT in Havana.
Like in previous years, the advocates of the anti-Cuban Miami-based mafia arrived in the Swiss city one or two days before the voting of the Cuban draft resolution; in order to let loose all their hatred against the Cuban people.

As the spaces for the accreditation to the sessions of the Commission of these elements had been gradually shut, several of them were forced to resort to press credentials to be able to enter the Room where the body was meeting.

Unlike the last few years, terrorist Luis Zúñiga did not participate in the CHR.  Apparently, the United States learned the lesson of the political attrition derived from having facilitated accreditation and a rostrum for the well-known terrorist the year before.

The manipulated and selective treatment of the subject of human rights in Cuba in the Commission at Geneva was denounced by the appeal "Let us stop a new maneuver against Cuba" signed by thousands of outstanding personalities, among them Peace Nobel awardees, renowned journalists, writers, artists, and professors.

The United States government has not the slightest moral right to accuse Cuba of anything. The outrageous, ruthless behavior of the present US administration has been responsible for some of the most serious, large-scale human rights violations in the whole history of humanity. This has been aggravated by the fact that it has trampled on and made a dead letter of a significant part of one of the most important advances of the international community in the sphere of international law, particularly human rights and international humanitarian law.

Hundreds of human beings remain arbitrarily imprisoned in territory illegally occupied by the US naval base on Guantánamo Bay, languishing in inhuman conditions. They have neither been charged nor prosecuted for over five years.

The Government of the United States is also responsible for having made secret flights across Europe, where prisoners of its so-called war against terrorism were then taken to secret detention and torture centers.

It is the United States, which, through the imposition of a cruel inhuman and genocidal blockade, has violated the human rights of the whole Cuban population for a period of more than 40 years.

It is the US administration which, flagrantly violating the principles of international law, conjures up, teaches and finances groupings of unscrupulous, annexation-inclined mercenaries so that, under the guidance of its Interests Section in Havana they may undertake actions aimed at destroying the Republic of Cuba’s constitutional order.

It is the US administration that violates the human rights of millions of US citizens by forbidding them to travel to Cuba.

Cuba, as an example of social justice, true democracy and respect for human rights is a thorn in the side of President Bush and his closest associates from the anti-Cuban mob. By dint of its sacrifice, talent and steadfastness the Cuban people has built a viable political, economic and social alternative, which is the complete opposite of the ideals of world domination and unilateral hegemony, which those currently controlling the United States government are trying to install worldwide. They fear what the Cuban Revolution has accomplished and for that reason all they can do is lie.

Last period of sessions of the CHR (2006)

Since early 2006, from the complex process of negotiation undertaken to establish the Human Rights Council, there began to emerge, in UN headquarters in Geneva and New York, considerable uncertainty with respect to the format the Commission's 62nd period of sessions, scheduled for 13 March, would assume.

The United States and their main allies advocated a short session of procedural character that would serve as a fast transition for the first session of the Human Rights Council. Thus, they would manage to move away the substantive debate on human rights issues, eluding therefore the consideration of subjects like Guantánamo that has motivated so many headlines in the press all over the world.

At the beginning of March, confusion, uncertainty and a lack of clarity still reigned in Geneva as a result of link established between the holding of the 62nd CHR and the results of the negotiation for the establishment of the Human Rights Council. None of the regional governments had reached a solid agreement with respect to their positions. The preparations for the 62nd CHR were paralyzed.

The prevailing vagueness produced all sorts of speculations and different variants were entertained, from the definitive cancellation of the 62nd CHR to the holding of normal (substantive) period of sessions as of 13 March.

On Monday 13 March, the 62nd period of sessions was opened, but it was quickly suspended for a week on the decision of the Commission Chairman, the Ambassador of Peru, pending the final results of General Assembly negotiations for the creation of a new Council.

On 15 March, the resolution (A/60/251) was finally approved in New York, allowing for the establishment of the Council on Human Rights as a subsidiary body of the National Assembly.

On Monday 20 March, the Commission reconvened and the session was once again suspended by virtue of article 41 of ECOSOC rules of procedure.

On Wednesday 23 March, ECOSOC adopted the decision of dissolving the CHR on 16 June, without a voting process.

In the afternoon of 27 March, the last period of sessions of the CHR reconvened. The session lasted a little over two hours and, without a voting process; only three documents were adopted, namely: the agenda for the 62nd CHR (L.1), the draft resolution on the conclusion of the work of the CHR (L.2) and the CHR report (L.10).

The draft resolution titled “Closure of the work of the Commission" (L.2) remitted all of the CHR’s special procedural reports to the Council.

Although no specific draft resolutions on countries were presented at this last session of the CHR, for Cuba it was clear that, in any future scenario, the government of the United States will persist in its anti—Cuban maneuver and will prepare itself to confront it, in defense of truth and reason and to demand the justice its people deserve, and against the annexationist designs of the Empire.  

Those governments which agree to cosponsor and support the anti-Cuban draft in Geneva will be accomplices of the imperialist plan which the Bush administration is implementing, the aim of which is to destroy by any means necessary —direct military intervention is not ruled out— the social, economic and political system freely chosen by the Cuban people. These governments will be contributing to the fabrication of a pretext Washington can use to step up its strengthened policy of blockade, hostility and aggression towards the Cuban people.

The work of the defunct Commission on Human Rights was encumbered by political manipulation and the application of double standards.

Nearly six decades after the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was adopted and nearly fourteen 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 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. These mechanisms relentlessly and dogmatically attempted to impose schemes and models touted as universal on these countries, tried to minimize the protection and promotion of economic, social and cultural rights and aimed to deny the recognition of and protection for the right of peoples to peace, development and self-determination.

All country-specific resolutions adopted on the CHR from 1990 to 2005 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.

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”, 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 are devoted to civil and political rights as they are to economic, social and cultural rights.

No one in their right mind could say that no human rights violations take place in developed countries; it is impossible, however, to discuss these violations in the Commission.

A process which unmasked the hypocrisy and the double standards that characterized 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”.

On Thursday, April 14, in the afternoon, the Cuban delegation registered the draft resolution using the symbol E/CN4/2005/L. 94.

Attendants learned that it was not a revengeful act or reprisal 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. It was not a text of confrontation, nor had it a condemnatory character.

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.
Nine Western European countries members of the Commission voted against it, three from Eastern Europe (Germany, Hungary and Romania) and four Latin American.  The European Union voted against the project in block.

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.
 
Those who prevented UN human rights mechanisms from investigating and effectively responding to cases of human rights violations, well documented through the international media, were those who were always ready to guarantee Washington’s impunity. They were the same people who, every year, submitted and co-sponsored unjust draft resolutions that condemned various South countries in the Commission on Human Rights, including the futile and spurious anti-Cuba farce directed by the United States.

In many, the dissolution of the Commission on Human Rights and the establishment of the Human Rights Council created sincere hopes that a new stage of cooperation and genuine dialogue would begin within UN human rights machinery. Unfortunately, reality has proven quite different.

While it is true that, during the period of institutional construction the Council has gone through in its first year, the traditional avalanche of resolutions against South countries has ceased in Geneva, there are no guarantees nor will reasons to suspect this continue to be the case.

What’s more, the battleground in the area of human rights may be being moved to New York. At the recently concluded autumn session of the 61st period of sessions of the UN General Assembly, there was a significant increase in the number of resolutions imposed upon developing countries, when the issue of human rights was considered at the Third Commission.

Everything appears to indicate that the strategic battle against the political manipulation of international cooperation efforts in the field of human rights has still to be won. 

The creation of the Human Rights Council. Cuba is elected a founding member.

On 15 March 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted, with 170 votes in favor, 4 against and 3 abstentions, resolution 60/251 on the mandate, composition, functions and work methods of the Human Rights Council.

This resolution accommodated many of the strategic interests of the United States and its industrialized allies. The Council was created at the cost of important achievements by South countries which had been defended by and had the support of the majority throughout the negotiation process.

The decision to offer prioritized attention, in the new body, to all nation's right to development were stricken from the adopted text, as was the demand to establish clear and non-discriminatory criteria that would put an end to selectiveness and double-standards in country-specific resolutions. Increasing the magnitude and broadening the spectrum of eventual sanctions against South countries within Council mechanisms, and with a view to satisfying imperial demands, a so-called suspension clause was included. This clause allows the Council to deprive countries that are members of the Human Rights Council of their rights at any time.

Cuba’s vote in favor of the resolution was accompanied by a declaration which expressed its critical points of view with respect to all of these elements. Cuba also pointed out that it would work with the Human Rights Council so that justice, respect towards international law, genuine dialogue and badly-needed international cooperation can prevail, to the benefit and for the protection of all human rights for all peoples and persons.

The United States voted against the resolution because it could not secure permanent membership in the council and because, in spite all of the efforts, behind the scenes, undertaken by its allies to satisfy its interests, it failed in its attempt at securing the capacity to veto the inclusion, within the new body, of countries that, like Cuba, raise their voices to denounce and fight against the political and ideological subjugation of Third World countries.

No sooner had the Council been founded than Cuba put itself forward as candidate for membership in the new body. Cuba was always convinced of the need to be a member of the Council and to work, from its seat, towards genuine international cooperation in the area of human rights.

Fearing a sanction from the international community in response to its violation of the most elementary human rights and its contempt towards multilateralism and the right which sustains it, the United States did not even dare put itself forward as candidate for membership in the Council.

Upon announcing its decision, “on this occasion”, not to apply for membership in the Council, the United States clearly indicated that it would work to exclude, from the body, of several countries which constitute the first line of resistance against imperialism's hegemonic and global domination project. Cuba, of course, was, from the word go, identified as a prioritized target whose candidacy needed to be sabotaged and ultimately defeated. In Washington, New York, Geneva and numerous capitals around the world, Bush administration representatives exerted diverse forms of pressure to undermine Cuba's legitimate aspiration.

In its actions against Cuba’s candidacy, the United States once again saw the subordination and complicity of many in the European Union and the immense majority of other countries that share in the privileges derived from today’s unjust international order. Fearing the consequences they could incur for daring to oppose a formula that would guarantee the risk-free election of the tutor of their petty interests and champion of their exclusivist ideology, the immense majority of EU countries closed ranks to block access to the council by countries on the "black" list prepared by the US State Department, in which Cuba had the honor of being among the first.

There were close allies and pawns of the empire, within the European Union, that even worked vigorously to have members publicly assume Washington's black list as their own.

The Czech Republic took the cake again in this humiliatingly submissive attitude. Its authorities didn’t miss an opportunity to accentuate their condition of paid marionettes of U.S. imperialist power circles and its protégé, Miami's anti-Cuban terrorist mob.
On 9 May 2006, Cuba was elected member of the Human Rights Council, its candidacy receiving the support of 135 of the 191 UN member nations, more than two thirds of the UN's total membership. The United States failed in its objective of preventing Cuba from holding a seat in the most important human rights body in the UN system.

Once again, Cuba’s broad international support, both with respect to its denunciations and struggle against the superpower’s imperial domination schemes was corroborated, as it was in the struggle it undertakes each day next to countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and all those who have made theirs the call for peace, justice, development, equity and solidarity. It were those countries, in their immense majority from the South, which appreciate our country's active work in defense of the causes shared by our peoples, which made possible the Cuba's presence in the Human Rights Council, as a founding member.

The result of these elections confirmed the international community's opposition to the empire’s attempt at denying the Cuban people its legitimate right to independence and self-determination. The fact Cuba was elected a member of this new UN human rights body also proved how generally discredited the anti-Cuban maneuvers, pursued by the United States at the Commission on Human Rights in the last two decades, have become.

It also demonstrated that the government of the United States cannot exclude or condemn Cuba at any international forum when there are conditions for countries, free from pressures and eventual reprisals, answering solely to the dictate of their consciences and expressing their sovereign will, to exercise their vote, something which, in today's world, is only possible through a secret ballot system. 

In June 2006, at the high-level segment of the Council's first period of sessions, His Excellency Felipe Pérez Roque, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, expressed Cuba's hope that the new body would mark the beginning of a qualitatively different stage in the struggle to create a system truly committed to the promotion and protection of all human rights for all of the world's inhabitants, not only the rich and privileged. He added that this would require a radical change, a true revolution in the concepts and methods which encumbered the defunct Commission.
He also expressed that Cuba harbored no illusions with respect to the true willingness of developed countries, allies of the United States, to take that significant and historical step. 

The Cuban foreign minister emphasized that, if real efforts were undertaken to make the promises proclaimed to the four winds a reality, the world could rely on Cuba.  He asserted that, to transform the Council in a tribunal for underdeveloped countries, to secure the impunity of the North, they could count Cuba out.

Anti-Cuban maneuvers in the human rights field pursued by the United States at the new Council: perspectives

The unjust condemnation of Cuba at UN human rights fora has been an essential component of the anti-Cuban policy pursued by successive US administrations. Nothing suggests that this  is going to change in the immediate future.

In the three ordinary sessions held by the Council between June and December 2006, the traditional anti-Cuban draft resolution was not presented.

However, an unprecedented event took place at a plenary session of the General Assembly on 8 November 2006. For the first time since 1992, when the Assembly adopted the first of the resolutions which, every year, have demanded an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States, the Bush administration undertook an initiative aimed at changing the very essence of the draft to be adopted, with the support of 183 states.

Washington spokespeople, convinced of their impotence and in view of the unanimous repudiation towards their blockade policy towards Cuba, opted to push through a murderous amendment to the resolution, seeking to take advantage of the confusion that often arises in situations where complex procedural changes are underway.

The Bush administration announced that Australia would present the draft amendment elaborated by Washington, whose text did nothing other than attempt to legitimize the illegal blockade policy, grounded in the imperialist aim of imposing a "regime change" upon Cuba.  

On Monday 6 November, the United States distributed "Talking Points", asking for support for the amendment that Australia would register on Tuesday 7th afternoon. The United States had failed in its attempt at having a country in the European Union present the amendment; it sought support from other countries and was unable to secure it. Finally, a very high level phone call from Washington to the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs made Australia the figurehead of the US amendment and offer proof of its abject submissiveness.

It is worth mentioning the government of Australia does not have the moral authority to even invoke the human rights situation in Cuba. The government of Australia is an accomplice of US imperialism. It practices a kind of "pocket imperialism”, ever-ready, in the Pacific, to follow its mentors in Washington. It not only collaborated with the US army and sent troops to Vietnam, where 4 million Vietnamese lost their lives, but also enthusiastically participated, sending over 2,000 soldiers, in the invasion of Iraq, an absolutely illegal “preventive” war.

The government of Australia, which subjects the country's aboriginal population to a veritable apartheid regime, has no moral authority to criticize Cuba. The government of Australia, which supports the US torture centre in Guantánamo, and which supported the summary trials, before military courts, of the ill-treated and tortured prisoners there, including Australian prisoners, has no authority whatsoever to criticize Cuba.

At the close of 2006, the United States had not yet managed to have the new Council present and approve the selective and politicized anti-Cuban text that had been adopted, by a very narrow vote margin, at the Commission on Human Rights.

However, as all mandates of the dissolved Commission have been extended for a year so as to avoid a power vacuum, Mrs. Christine Chanet, Personal Representative of the High Commissioner for Cuba, continues in her contemptible position. This allowed her to present a new anti-Cuban report during the second ordinary period of sessions of the Council and will make it possible for her to do so in the fourth period —March - April 2007—, when, again, the anti-Cuban farce traditionally orchestrated by the United States, with the support of its paid cronies in Miami and a European mercenary here and there, like those recruited by “People in Need" with Washington's money, should be repeated. These few voices, as happens every year, will be neutralized by the overwhelming support given Cuba by hundreds of interventions by non-governmental organizations that represent the true defenders of human rights. These few voices, as happens every year, will be neutralized by the overwhelming support given Cuba by hundreds of interventions by non-governmental organizations that represent the true defenders of human rights.

Will it be possible to defeat the anti-Cuban maneuver in the field of human rights?

Through the battle will be arduous and long, today real spaces to confront these maneuvers, pursued by the United States in the area of human rights, are opening up.

The Council is born of the exhaustion of that system that unjustly sanctions and condemns South countries and, all the while, secures complete impunity for human rights violations in the North.

The Universal Periodic Review mechanism will soon be established. This mechanism ought to guarantee the impartial, objective and non-selective scrutiny of any human rights situation in any country in the world, Cuba included.

Those who justified their support for the anti-Cuban maneuver pursued by the United States claiming that the anti-Cuban text was not condemnatory and that no country could consider itself exempt from the monitoring of the UN's human rights machinery, today no longer have this pretext. As a member of the Council, Cuba shall submit itself to the review of this mechanism within the three year period the present mandate, provided the unjust anti-Cuban policy imposed upon the Commission by the United States is discontinued.
 
History shall be the judge of the honor, dignity and respect for justice and truth of each and every member of the Council.  

Cuba has affirmed that it will work with the Human Rights Council so that genuine dialogue and dearly-needed international cooperation for the promotion and protection of all human rights for all peoples and individuals can prevail.

If the United States and other developed nations managed to hijack the Council's mechanisms and transform it into a new inquisition tribunal to sanction South countries and demonize every just cause pursued in our world, let there be no doubt about it: Cuba will once again take the stand to denounce and struggle, with resolution, against those who are bereft of principles and reason and who resort to force, confrontation and lies.