From the press

From the press

New UN Human Rights Counsel: for the Future or More of the Same 29/03/06

Cuba Demands Investigation on Prisoners´ Rights in Guantanamo Base 18/04/05

EU Silent on Guantanamo Probe Proposed by Cuba 18/04/05

The Human Rights Commission is discredited when the United States utilizes it against Cuba 24/03/05

Cuba Charges US Lacks Moral Authority on Human Rights 8/03/05

Discreet and secret steps against Cuba 8/03/05

Venezuela Condemns US Maneuvers against Cuba 16/03/05

Cuba Rejects US Bill in Geneva 22/03/05

Discrimination Haunts UNHRC 21/03/05

Electoral Registers Check Ends in Cuba 17/03/05

Cuba Proposes World Change to Improve Human Rights 17/03/05

Cuban Foreign Minister to Respond to US Maneuvers at UNCHR 16/03/05

Argentina: Neoliberalism versus Human Rights at the CHR 15/03/05

The US is the least indicated to accuse anybody, said Perez Roque 15/03/05

Cuba Demands Thorough Human Rights Comission Reform 15/03/05

New UN Human Rights Counsel: Hope for the Future or More of the Same?

Taken from Radio Habana Cuba
March 29 , 2006

Nearly a month ahead of schedule, the UN Human Rights Commission wound up its 62nd session, the last of its more than 60-year existence.

Just a day was needed to dissolve and immediately begin to implement the recently approved Human Rights Counsel. The so-called HRC, met in the Commission's usual Room 17 of the Palace of Nations in Geneva, to pass a resolution establishing the transfer of all its functions, procedure and mechanisms to the new agency that will substitute it.

Although its official disappearance its set for June 16, just three days before the new Counsel begins its first period of sessions, in practice, the Commission now has no capacity to act on topics other than purely technical and procedural matters aimed at opening the way for the functioning of the new agency.

In Monday's first special session, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, told a full house that the UN member states should take advantage of the change to improve the Commission's work over the last six decades. But she also recognized the now defunct agency's important achievements, among them setting the basis for a group of international instruments in defense of human dignity.

The high-ranking UN official also favorably mentioned the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, texts condemning genocide, racism and torture, that were passed by the late Commission, which, she noted, also exerted significant efforts for the rights of women and children.

The truth is however, that many of the best fruits of the UN Human Rights Commission, never achieved their potential, because of the intransigence or lack of political will of a small group of developed nations headed by the United States, which prioritized civil and political, over economic, social and cultural rights .

On its closing day, the Human Rights Commission, heard the words of its president, Peruvian, Manuel Rodriguez Cuadros, who called the occasion, "historic". It is the end of a cycle, he stated, and the beginning of a new one that will be crucial for the future of human rights around the world.

Though many would like to share in that optimism, the signals sent out thus far by those who sank the Commission into disgrace, warn that the new agency will have to deal with the same politicized, selective and discriminatory focus that so damaged the prestige of its predecessor .

Unfortunately, judging by the vote on the resolution that constituted the Counsel, there has not been the least weakening in the determination of the United States and the European Union and other western powers to keep nations off the Counsel that defend a different political model than their own or those that refuse to obey orders.

Those nations have been the brunt of all types of defamation campaigns and, as they did in the Human Rights Commission, the powerful countries will continue trying to place the nations of the South in the accused box.

Experts base their concerns over the direction and action of the new Counsel on the past actions of the Commission. The Counsel opens its first official session on June 19 in the Swiss city of Geneva. Its membership has been reduced to 47 countries, which require at least 96 nations to approve them. Washington and other western capitals are already exerting tremendous pressure, so that on May 9, election day, governments they don't like will be excluded. However, the fact that the vote is secret could thwart their plans to control the Counsel's membership.

At any rate, many countries, among them Cuba, are willing to take on the challenge of standing up to US maneuvering, as they did in the UN Human Rights Commission. Havana is not afraid to continue doing so within this new agency, even though it appears that it was made to order to favor the interests that Washington has defined as the new American Century.

Cuba Demands Investigation on Prisoners´ Rights in Guantanamo Base

Havana, Apr 14 (Prensa Latina) Cuba has asked the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) to request United State´s consent to allow an independent and impartial investigation into the situation of the prisoners currently held at the illegal Guantanamo Naval Base in eastern Cuba.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque asked the European Union at a press conference to co-sponsor Cuba´s resolution submitted this Thursday at the UNCHR in Geneva, to demonstrate their genuine concern over human rights.

Under the draft resolution, the group should be made up of the chairman of the Work Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special Rapporteur for Torture, the Special Rapporteur on the right of every person to the highest level of mental and physical health, and the Special Rapporteur for the independence of lawyers and judges.

It calls on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to submit a report in the next period of sessions on the situation of the people being held there, based on the investigation conducted by the above mentioned officials.

The motion finally asks the UNCHR to keep the matter on its agenda for the 62nd period of sessions in 2006 taking into account international concern for the situation of those prisoners held at the base as part of the antiterrorist drive begun after the 9/11, 2001 attacks in New York.

This initiative was submitted relying on the significant number of governments and Parliaments in the world, including the European Parliament, that have voiced their concern over the plight of prisoners held by the US in its naval base in Guantanamo.

Perez Roque assured that no maneuver will block the voting of the document next week, adding that it will not give in to requests from other delegations to withdraw its request, as Havana did last year.

Through pressure and political maneuvering, the US managed to get an anti-Cuba resolution approved Thursday by a 21-17 vote and 15 abstentions at the UNCHR.

The Foreign Minister blasted the resolution, saying that his country will neither accept nor cooperate with it since Cuba considers this apocryphal resolution illegitimate.

The US proposal was supported by the European Union, whom the Cuban representative in Geneva termed as "servile and submissive", and unable to articulate an independent foreign policy".

EU Silent on Guantanamo Probe Proposed by Cuba

Havana, April 18 (AIN) The European Union remains silent on Cuba's resolution at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva calling for an independent investigation into the situation at the offshore prison camp the Pentagon runs at its Guantanamo Naval Base.

To date, the European representatives have not responded to Cuba's challenge for the EU to take a stand on this burning human rights issue. The 53-member commission is scheduled to vote on the matter later this week.

Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez, a Cuban representative to the UN body, said he hopes the European silence means that everyone agrees with the statements issued in the document.

Belarus is co-sponsoring the Cuban resolution. The ambassador of that country in Geneva emphasized that the situation of the prisoners in Guantanamo is a matter that greatly concerns the international community.

Cuba Rejects US Bill in Geneva

Havana, Mar 22 (Prensa Latina) Cuba has rated unfair and unequal the US bill to be presented in Geneva, attempting to condemn it at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR).

Addressing the media, Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said Washington suffered its first defeat in the 61st UNCHR sessions when it found no country to present the bill on its behalf.

"Washington failed in its pretensions to make the international community believe that the human rights situation in Cuba is a cause for concern. This false allegation has been deflated", underlined Perez Roque.

With the document in his hands, the Cuban minister said it only has three paragraphs of introduction and two of resolution.

"It is an unfair and unequal text, which intrinsically shows the incompetence of its promoters", said Perez Roque.

The Cuban official also noted that the US is the main human rights violator worldwide and recalled the abuse of prisoners by the US military in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq, and Guantanamo.

Perez Roque predicted that Cuba will also present other topics for discussion at the Geneva meeting, including the right for food, foreign debt and structural adjustments imposed on Third World nations, the establishment of a new international order and the promotion of peace as an essential right.

Kill Chavez?

By Ignacio Ramonet
Taken from Latin Press
March 9, 2005

US assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Roger Noriega declared last February 13, on the CNN Spanish channel that the purchase of 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 40 helicopters from Russia by the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez is "a cause of concern for our partners in the Americas and also for the people of Venezuela."

He added that "Venezuela´s rearmament is very troubling." In January, new Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, had already accused Hugo Chavez of having "a destabilizing effect on Latin America." And President Bush himself, in December 2004, insisted that those arms purchases "should be a cause of concern for Venezuelans."

Venezuela, one of the US´s major oil suppliers, has denied that it is carrying out an arms race and reminded Washington of its refusal to sell spare parts for its F-16 fighter planes, so Caracas is considering buying Migs from Russia and Toucans from Brazil.

But this new verbal attack confirms the US intention of harassing President Chavez. His clear electoral victory in the revocatory referendum of August 15, 2004, has shown that he has the support of the majority of the citizens. Something which was again demonstrated in last October´s regional elections. None of the dirty tricks -not even the April 2002 Washington-backed attempted coup- have been able to stop the social transformation process, within a framework of democracy and freedom, which Hugo Chavez is fostering. And his personal success in the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre (last February), where more than fifteen thousand enthusiastic youths acclaimed his speech, have turned him into the leading figure of the entire Latin American left.

This is reason enough for Washington Hawks to put even greater pressure on him. Venezuela still hasn´t been placed among the "six bastions of world tyranny" but one can see that it already heads the waiting list.

And, although they still don´t dare use the now common argument of having "weapons of mass destruction" against Caracas, we can already see how they´re trying to turn -by way of aggressive media propaganda- a number of small arms into "a danger for the security of the hemisphere".

We must fear that the next stage could be that of State crime, the assassination of Hugo Chavez. Venezuelan vice-president, Jose Vicente Rangel, has shown photographs which prove the existence in Homestead, Florida (USA), of a training camp for paramilitary troops -who have no problems with US authorities- destined to act in Venezuela. Some of these terrorists are already operating on Venezuelan territory. Proof: on May 2nd last year, a group of 91 Colombian paramilitary elements, linked to the CIA and whose objective was to kill Chavez, were arrested outside of Caracas. The head of the group, Jose Ernesto Ayala Amado, "Commander Lucas", admitted -according to his own confession- that his mission was to "cut Chavez´s head off."

This way of assassinating a political figure is encouraged within the ranks of the opposition. On July 25th, 2004, in the middle of the revocatory referendum debate, former president Carlos Andres Perez, in an interview published the Caracas daily El Nacional, did not hesitate in confessing: "I´m working to take Chavez out (of power).Violence will allow us to overthrow him. Chavez must die like a dog."

Another opposition leader, Orlando Urdaneta, on October 25, 2004, ordered his followers -live on Miami´s Channel 22- to take action: "The only way out for Venezuela is to eliminate Chavez: one person with a rifle and a telescopic sight –that´s it."

The recent assassination of District Attorney Danilo Anderson makes it clear that it is not just a matter of words. And the fact that Hawks of the stature of George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice or Roger Noriega now renew their threats is an undeniable signal that the project to kill Chavez is in process. It´s time to denounce it so as to discourage them from carrying it out. If not, rivers of blood will again run through the open veins of Latin America.

The Human Rights Commission is discredited when the United States utilizes it against Cuba

• Affirms Cuban ambassador in Geneva

• Responds to US representative with photos of the torture in Abu Ghraib

GENEVA, March 24.—Cuba affirmed on Thursday that the UN Human Rights Commission (HRC) is discredited each time that the United States imposes an anti-Cuba resolution on it, as it is trying to do in this 61st session.

Ambassador Iván Mora Godoy addressed the HRC today to condemn the shameless selectivity, political manipulation and lack of objectivity in the treatment of Cuba over more than 10 years, based on Washington’s impositions.

"The United States has taken this commission hostage to justify its policy of aggression toward Cuba," the diplomat affirmed in the plenary session in Room 17, where the commission is meeting until the end of April.

Cuba responds to The U.S.

Senator Rudy Boschwitz, head of the US delegation, boasted of being a personal friend of President Bush and lauded the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, describing the military occupation of those nations as "democratic advances."

However, Juan Antonio Fernández, head of the island’s delegation, made use of the right to reply, during which he displayed to the plenary the well-known images of torture committed by Pentagon troops.

"How do they dare to come here to speak on human rights, democracy and freedom? These photos say it all," he exclaimed while holding the photos aloft for the auditorium to see.

"We at least expected silence from the United States. This is Guantánamo, this is Fallujah, we know what we are talking about," concluded the diplomat.

Cuba Charges US Lacks Moral Authority on Human Rights

Havana, Mar 8 (Prensa Latina) Cuba"s foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, categorically rejected a recent U.S. State Department report criticizing the island"s human rights record, charging that Washington has no moral authority to judge other countries after its own scandals over treatment of war prisoners.

"We urge the U.S. authorities to worry about their own problems," Felipe Perez Roque said at a news conference on Monday.

"Cuba recognizes that there are violations of human rights in our country, but they are at the Guantanamo Naval Base, in territory occupied against Cuba´s will," Roque remarked of the U.S. base used as a giant prison for alleged terror suspects.

Perez Roque noted that the State Department had not issued a report on the United States, based on the ongoing accussations by international human rights groups about inhumane prisoner conditions and harsh treatment at the Guantanamo base, and earlier scandals at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The Feb. 28 U.S. report on rights practices in Cuba is a repetition of Washington´s allegations over freedom of speech, press, assembly, as well as the imprisonment of individuals who were tried and sentenced for serving as foreign agents and that the U.S. government hails as dissidents.

The news conference was called to discuss the annual spring meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where a U.S.-backed resolution to condemn Cuba´s rights record is presented every year.

Discreet and secret steps against Cuba

• Felipe Pérez Roque accuses the U.S. of new maneuvers to present an anti-Cuban resolution before the HRC in Geneva

By Mariela Pérez Valenzuela
Taken from Granma International
March 8, 2005

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque warned that the United States government is once again preparing to present a resolution against Cuba before the Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Geneva.

During a press conference at the offices of the Foreign Ministry (MINREX), also attended by Ricardo Alarcón, president of parliament, Pérez Roque affirmed that Washington is carrying out discreet and secret steps to find someone to present the document against Cuba.

He noted that to that end, it is seeking contacts in Eastern Europe, after difficulties in finding a sponsor in Latin America.

Cuba hopes that this year, no Latin American government will present, cosponsor or vote for any anti-Cuban resolution, which only serves Washington, he added, and later added that "we don’t rule out what the United States government itself may do."

The top Cuban diplomat said that Washington needs that anti-Cuban condemnation as a pretext to try to justify its criminal and unjust blockade against the country.

Later during the conference, he affirmed that even while Cuba understands that the HRC has lost legitimacy, the first would participate with a spirit of cooperation during the 61st Session meetings, which are set to begin on the 14th.

Rejects us accusations

The foreign minister rejected accusations regarding supposed human rights violations contained in a report on that subject published by the US State Department.

Cuba believes that the US government’s unilateral practice of publishing a report judging the rest of the world’s situation without dedicating a single sentence to examining the situation of that issue in the United States is a practice that does not deserve our respect, he stated.

After affirming that the aforementioned document lacks credibility and shamelessly lies, he maintained that Cuba believes the US government does not have the moral authority to accuse any other country with respect to human rights.

It seems to us that the only violations of human rights, the only crimes, the only persecutions against prisoners committed on Cuban territory are those that take place at the illegal naval base of Guantánamo, he emphasized.

Pérez Roque declared that those are the violations that should be the object of condemnation and monitoring by the Human Rights Commission.

Cuba and Human Rights Book Launched

Previously, Juan Antonio Fernández, director of multilateral affairs for MINREX, had presented the second volume of the book Cuba y los derechos humanos (Cuba and Human Rights), which is divided into five parts.

In explaining the book’s content, Fernández noted that this volume includes the history of anti-Cuban maneuvers in the area of human rights, ever since the first failed attempts by the US government to impose a condemnation of Cuba in 1985 and 1986.

He recalled that after its 1988 failure to condemn Cuba, Washington modified the design of its maneuvering in the HRC, and to that end, using blackmail and pressure, began to recruit new presenters for an anti-Cuban resolution in the Commission.

He noted that in 2004, when the anti-Cuban resolution was adopted by a ridiculous margin of one vote, the disrepute and discredit of the Yankee maneuvering in Geneva was corroborated.

All of these details are included in the book’s 59 pages, which also include references to the current situation of the HRC, which – he said – remains shackled after losing its way and concerning itself less and less with human rights.

Another part of the book is dedicated to Cuba’s international cooperation in the area of human rights, in spite of the unjust, anti-Cuban maneuvering that the United States imposes at the HRC.

Fernández emphasized that Havana will continue to promote initiatives of interest to the majority of the Third World peoples, such as the right to food and to peace, and it will redouble its efforts to democratize and rescue the HRC, just as is proposed in this book.

Venezuela Condemns US Maneuvers against Cuba

Orlando Oramas Leon, Special Correspondent

Geneva, Mar 16 (Prensa Latina) It is scandalous that the US tries to point at Cuba on the human rights issue, denounced Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Vice Minister Maria Pilar Hernandez, who ratified her country´s condemnation of those manouvers.

Speaking to Prensa Latina on Wednesday, Maria Pilar Hernandez asserted the Caribbean island had proven how dignity was practiced, irrespective of threats and military, political and economic aggressions.

Pilar Hernandez, a popular journalist and political expert in Caracas, said the White House sought to condemn Havana at the UN Human Rights Commission while the public witnessed the horror caused by tortures and abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.

We resolutely oppose the Washington maneuvers, which demonstrate the double standard policy prevailing at the human rights commission, contended the vice minister in the commission´s 61st period of sessions held at the Geneva-based Palace of Nations.

She highlighted her rejection to human rights violations with the pretext of fighting terrorism, as it happened in jails in Iraq and the US-illegally held Guantanamo naval base.

Deaths, tortures and humiliations in Iraq and Guantanamo, in the name of the so-called anti-terrorist war, should be considered acts that degrade human conditions, Pilar Hernandez stressed.

Asked on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice´s assessments against Venezuela, she maintained, "I would tell her that she does not know what she says because she knows nothing about the reality there. In good faith, I urge her to get well-informed."

The Venezuelan vice minister of Foreign Affairs also called for changes at the commission and the UN, chiefly the strengthening of its role and work of the General Assembly, and highly praised the Bolivarian revolution achievements in health, education and social, economic and cultural rights.

Cuba Rejects US Bill in Geneva

Havana, Mar 22 (Prensa Latina) Cuba has rated unfair and unequal the US bill to be presented in Geneva, attempting to condemn it at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR).

With the document in his hands, the Cuban minister said it only has three paragraphs of introduction and two of resolution.

"It is an unfair and unequal text, which intrinsically shows the incompetence of its promoters", said Perez Roque.

The Cuban official also noted that the US is the main human rights violator worldwide and recalled the abuse of prisoners by the US military in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq, and Guantanamo.

Discrimination Haunts UNHRC

Geneva, Mar 21 (Prensa Latina) The International Day of Struggle against Racism was commemorated in the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC).

The UN special raporteur against all kinds of discrimination, Doudou Diene, said there is still a lot to do in favor of cultural diversity and against human segregation due to religion, sex, skin color and other reasons.

After his speech there was an interactive dialogue in which delegates from Guatemala and Honduras said that despite laws for full integration of the indigenous peoples, the Central American States lack resources to make it effective.

Cuban representative Juan Antonio Fernandez recalled that the 60th anniversary of the victory over fascism will be commemorated this year, which will happen when movements and parties with that reactionary ideology are arising in Europe and the United States. He also called for education about exclusion of the African-American population in the last two electoral processes.

The Libyan ambassador denounced restrictions on workers who are immigrants of Muslim origin. Those who travel wearing beard have to be searched with metal detectors, while women wearing veils are insulted in European streets, she said.

Raporteur Peter Lesa Kasanda from Ethiopia criticized the delay in relation to the agreement of Durban´s Conference and demanded more resources for organizations that are confronting racial discrimination.

China went to the heart of the matter and addressed the causes of discrimination. "We have to eradicate poverty," said Beijing´s ambassador, who called upon wealthy countries to contribute to reducing the gap between the rich and the dispossessed.

Electoral Registers Check Ends in Cuba

Havana, Mar 17 (Prensa Latina) The deadline for voters to verify any mistake in primary electoral registers will conclude Thursday in Cuba, the National Electoral Commission reported.

These rolls, placed as of February 15 in public places throughout the country, will be removed today, and finally published on April 6.

Over 15,000 district commisions have worked on the registers together with neighbors, showing the transparency of the electoral system in the largest of the Antilles.

People over 16 years old with permanent residence have the right to vote, except those mentally ill or serving prison sentences, even when on parole.

Meetings to nominate candidates as delegates for the Municipal Assemblies (local governments) are being held in each constituency up to March 24.

Candidates´ biographies will be published as of March 27 in public for the voters to review candidate profiles.

The first round of these polls will be on April 17. A second round will be held a week later in those constituencies where no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote.

Cuba holds elections every two and a half years to form the municipal assemblies and every five-years to elect delegates to Provincial Assemblies and deputies to the National Assembly (parliament).

Cuba Proposes World Change to Improve Human Rights

Geneva, Mar 17 (Prensa Latina) Cuba´s Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said Wednesday in Geneva that a UN Commission on Human Rights without selectivity, polarization, blackmail, double standards and hypocrisy would only be possible if the world changes.

Pérez Roque spoke at the 61st session of the United Nations Commission on Human rights and his statement was followed by a great ovation, something unusual inside the building where the event was taking place.

The Cuban minister said his country does not consider an illusion to achieve such challenge but a cause the country is currently struggling for and will be doing so in the future.

"The Commission on Human Rights represents nowadays the unjust and unequal world we are living in," the diplomat said.

Perez Roque reiterated that Cuba will never stop fighting the maneuvers of the US government to try to condemn the Cuba. He added that the administration of President George W. Bush is afraid of the Cuban example to the world.

"We are a dangerous example, a symbol that only a just, fraternal and socialist society can make possible so that its people enjoy all rights," he stressed.

The Cuban diplomat exhorted the UNCHR to find in Cuba any evidence of extrajudicial execution, a person disappeared, a journalist murdered or a tortured convict.

The foreign minister said Washington has plans to turn Cuba into a colony, privatize the health care and educational systems, and finish with the national resources.

Pérez Roque questioned the UNCHR for its silence regarding the violations against the five Cubans imprisoned in US jails. The minister also denounced the partiality of the Commission when the European Union refused to co-sponsor and vote in favor of a project resolution to investigate tortures and humiliation against hundreds of prisoners at the Pentagon´s naval base in Guantanamo.

"Cuba is the voice of millions of voiceless people," commented an African delegate participating in the session.

Cuban Foreign Minister to Respond to US Maneuvers at UNCHR

Geneva, Mar 16 (Prensa Latina) Cuba´s Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque will speak before the 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) to respond to new US political maneuvers against the Island.

Pérez Roque arrived in Geneva after a tour of several European countries. At the airport, the Cuban diplomat stated that the US government does not have moral values to accuse anyone at the UNCHR.

Participants at the UNCHR gathering -as in previous years- are expectantly awaiting to hear the speech by the Cuban Foreign Minister.

Cuba´s representatives at all UNCHR meetings have straightforwardly responded to Washington´s political gamble and pressures to impose a resolution against the Island over alleged human rights violations.

The foreign minister told Prensa Latina that the US was seeking sponsors for its anti-Cuban draft resolution it promotes every year to justify the unjust blockade on the Cuban people.

According to Pérez Roque, the US may again find a puppet country in Latin America or in Eastern Europe. The leading diplomat added that the US delegates could submit the draft themselves.

The Cuban minister denounced that the United States was the country least indicated and with no morale whatsoever to accuse Cuba at the UNCHR after the war crimes, torture, rape and humiliation its troops had committeed against prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and the naval base in Guantanamo.

Perez Roque reiterated that Cuba would speak out loud and clear before the 61st session of the international forum.

Argentina: Neoliberalism versus Human Rights at the CHR

Geneva, Mar 15 (Prensa Latina) Argentina hit a raw nerve today by exposing the damaging results of the structural adjustment programs and the aftermath of the foreign debt on the peoples´basic rights.

Horacio Rosatti, minister of Justice and Human Rights, said the Argentinean people know much about this, as the social and economic crisis weighs on their shoulders due to the enforced neoliberal policies.

Before the plenary of the 61st session period of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), Rosatti lashed out at the receipes imposed by the international financial institutions which provoked social uprisings in Argentina.

He referred to the "violation of rights and guarantees and their social exclusion consequences" due to the structural adjustment policies, as well as foreign debt and financial speculation that originated it.

Such conditions motivated an increase in unemployment, poverty and misery which the government of Nestor Kirchner confronts from different perspectives compared to previous administrations, he said.

"We can assert here that, although the emergency has not been overcome, Argentina has today 3.2 million persons less under the poverty line and 3.5 million persons less in abject poverty", he said.

He defended the results of the recent exchange of foreign debt titles, aimed most of all to defend and guarantee basic economic, social and cultural rights of the population."

On this issue, Rosatti highlighted that for the first time Argentina carries out a restructuring of the debt that ends with a drastic reduction of the country´s debt.

It has been an operation "compatible with economic growth and development and not at the cost of the Argentinean people´s hunger," he stressed.

Rosatti advanced his delegation will present a draft resolution at the CHR on the right to truth, not only of the relatives of victims of severe rights violations but the Argentinean society as a whole.

He also explained his country´s participation in the redaction of a draft resolution titled "Facultative Protocol for the International Pact on economic, social and cultural rights."

The US is the least indicated to accuse anybody, said Perez Roque

By Orlando Oramas

Geneva, Switzerland, Mar 15 (Prensa Latina) The United States is the country least indicated and with no morale to present accusations before the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) affirmed here today Cuban FM Felipe Perez Roque, the eve of his speech before this international forum.

The minister arrived at this city and will occupy the podium in the Assembly Hall near midday on Wednesday, in an intervention which has raised many expectations.

Perez Roque declared to Prensa Latina that Washington pretends to search for a sponsor to his repeated maneuvers against the island in the CHR and he anticipated a new moral defeat.

"There are all sort of rumours going around, it is said maybe they find again some lackey in Latin America. It is also said they could get one in Eastern Europe", he said.

Perez Roque stressed that among the probabilities there is a chance the own US delegation, presents although they would not prefer it that way, their anti-Cuban project.

"But we know beforehand that project is doomed to fail", he predicted.

"People don´t believe in them. Many say it outright, others express their thoughts in a low voice, telling us it is a maneuver lacking any authority", emphasized the minister.

He advised the George W. Bush administration "to mind their own problems and their own crimes".

The Cuban FM underlined the reiterated practice at the CHR of fabricating a pretext to "maintain the genocidal blockade which they tighten more each day".

Perez Roque anticipated that Cuba will speak loud and clear before the 61st session period of the international forum, contrary to the United States, country responsible for the humilliations and tortures on prisoners in the illegal Iraq war.

He recalled that Washington decided that aggression without the approval of the UN, which has left thousands dead among the civil Iraqi population and also about 1500 US youths.

"A country can be powerful, with nuclear weapons, but weak in the moral and in the ethics fields and that is what happens with the US government", affirmed the minister.

He also highlighted the impact of a document signed by numerous personalities all over the world which denounces the Bush administration for trying to condemn Cuba in the human rights issue.

"I was moved when I went through the signatures, to see the presence of such prestigious people, with authority, so many personalities of culture, thought, the press, four Nobel prize winners, outstanding writers, humanists from Europe, the United States and Latin America", he said.

The call, he said, is "the recognition to the resistance of our people, a recognition to their struggle for independence and for a better world".

"I think it is a call to ethics and against hypocrisy and cannot be ignored", he pointed.

On his recent visit to Brussels he assured it was an opportunity to explain Cuba´s stance. "I appreciate an evolution in the positions of the European Union", he expressed.

Approached at this city´s airport, where he arrived after an official visit to Spain, he said relations with that country were on the rise.

"We have to recognize that the Spanish government has played an important role in the EU to try to change the heritage of the Aznar period", he said.

Cuba Demands Thorough Human Rights Comission Reform

By Orlando Oramas León

Geneva, Mar 15 (Prensa Latina) Cuba has demanded a thorough reform of the United Nations Comission on Human Rights (UNCHR), which it compared to a "sinking ship".

Juan Antonio Fernandez, representative of the island said the UNCHR "has sunk under the weight of its lack of credibility and prestige."

The director of Multilateral issues at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations affirmed that political maneuvering and double standards prevail in the treatment of the individual´s basic rights.

"The ship is sinking for the inconsistencies and impunity allowed to a small group of privileged countries inside the irrational world order in which we are living," he pointed out.

The Cuban representative´s words were supported by delegates from numerous countries, many of which are represented these days by their ministers of Foreign Affairs or other high officials.

Fernandez denied that developing countries, poor and marginated, were responsible of this situation. "We have always been the eternal defendants in this forum, which has become an inquisition court controlled by the rich."

On the contrary, he asserted, Third World nations have been "the voice of resistance" and tribune to denounce the "pretensions of silencing truths".

He stressed that now runs the alarm warning to reform the CHR. "In truth we don´t only need to reconstruct our ship, we also need more secure seas for surfing", he indicated.

For Cuba, he said, the CHR cannot be reformed half-way. "It has to be reformed from its own foundations."

He described as insufficient the proposals that call to transform the Commission from different angles. "Few dare to hit the sore", the Cuban diplomat said. "My country doesn´t bring magic formulas, he said, but to work jointly to improve the CHR."

Cuba, he added, comes to promote the more noble causes and also to dispel the lies, fight impunity of the powerful and strip the hypocrisy of its servers.

A true change must begin by eliminating the imposition of unfair resolutions, against countries from a confrontational perspective and under dominion and political control motivations. As it usually happens, Havana´s delegate was the only one here to point out to the United States.

The diplomat told Prensa Latina the Cuban delegation would play an active role in this 61th session, to which the Caribbean nation will submit several draft resolutions.

Cuban foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, will arrive here Tuesday night and will address the plenary of the Commission on Wednesday morning, on the third day of the high official level.