This document provides insights into the viewpoint of the Government of the Republic of Cuba regarding the anti-Cuba campaign mounted year after year by the US administration, applying enormous pressures, at the Commission on Human Rights.

It is a supplement to the document issued as the official paper to be submitted at the 59th session of the CHR (reference E/CN.4/2003/G/37), apprising the Commission of the Cuban government's views on Resolution 2002/18, also tabled by the United States during the 58th session of the Commission.

Cuba does not and will never recognize the spurious mandate of the so-called Personal Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, an aberration invented and institutionalized by the United States with the aim of stepping up its campaigne of lies and propagandist manipulation against the Cuban people.

For years, the superpower has resorted to the crudest forms of coercion against members of the Commission in its attempts to force through its resolutions against Cuba, including bilateral blackmail in its political, trading and financial relations and even in those on migration.

In its wilful manipulation of the Commission, Washington has enjoyed the collusion of other industrialized nations, notably its closest allies in "the coalition of the willing" who, in their anxiety to get their pickings from the new share-out of world resources being engineered by the US imperialists, have bowed to Washington's wishes and support the plans spawned by its hostile policy towards the Cuban people.

And what can one say about that handful of lackey states in the Empire's backyard which ignore the will of their peoples and the most basic principles of justice, truth and morality by complying with the US's shameful behest by publicly to assuming the ostensible authorship of a text drafted and repeatedly amended in Washington and Miami? No adjectives adequately express their ignominy, shamelessness and servility.

The governments of those countries —publicly repudiated by their peoples— expect as reward for "anti-Cuba services rendered" the safety-net of support by the US administration, the propping up of their fraudulent regimes which cause such suffering to their peoples, bringing poverty, starvation and humiliation to their citizens.

Neither Cuba nor any other responsible member of the international community could condone such heinous intentions of manipulating the mechanisms of international cooperation on human rights. Accordingly, Cuba has no intention of facilitating, much less helping, the implementation of the project aimed at imperialist hegemonic domination being pursued by the current US administration, not least because this would necessitate suspending the Cuban people's right to self-determination.

The present world situation confronts the Cuban nation with one of the most real and dangerous threats to its independence and sovereign existence, given the intensification of the US government's policy of hostility, aggression and blockade.

The very right to life of millions of Cuban men and women is threatened to a degree not seen since the policies of genocide and resettlement imposed by the Spanish colonial authorities at the end of the 19th century, or the mercenary Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón) invasion of 1961, or the US naval blockade and threat of nuclear extermination during the October 1962 Missile Crisis.

The spreading imposition of a blatantly fascist imperialist foreign policy by the world's only superpower has been accompanied by a unusual increase in access to the US's decision-making processes by the Cuban American terrorist mob and the American extreme right wing —historically committed to the annexation of Cuba by the US. Recent decisions, actions and pronouncements of key figures in the Bush administration show a clear pattern of escalating threats and provocations directed at the Cuban people . The possibility of military action against Cuba is now a very real one. Detailed information on this situation is provided later in this report.

The extensive detail we provide in the present document gives the lie to the virulent campaign of false propaganda unleashed on Cuba following the fully-justified decision of the Cuban authorities to impose severe penalties on a gang of mercenaries recruited and paid by Washington, in pursuing its aims of sabotaging the constitutional order established by sovereign decision of the Cuban people and implementing the annexionist provisions of the Helms-Burton Act.

We describe in depth the observance and practical expressions of human rights in Cuba —economic, social and cultural as well as civil and political, thereby exposing the falsehoods about Cuba promulgated by the transnationals that monopolize world information flows.

We give details of the frequent and continuing terrorist attacks on Cuba by groups operating with impunity out of US territory and often trained, supported and funded by Washington. We go on to condemn the arbitrary arrest and cruel and unjust treatment in the United States of five young Cuban anti-terrorist fighters and defenders of their people's human rights, and we demand justice for them.

The document also demonstrates that the US confrontation and manipulation at the Commission on Human Rights targeting the Cuban people has received and continues to receive a principled response from Havana: rejection and denunciation of discrimination, combined with total cooperation with all the general, non-discriminatory UN human rights machinery.

There is no government in the world with legitimate reasons to single out Cuba for condemnation at the Commission on Human Rights. Few other governments have achieved as much on human rights for their respective peoples as Cuba has over the last 45 years. That was what the Cuban Revolution was about. Self-respecting people the world over are aware of this.

Many peoples have benefited from the unceasing, disinterested commitment of Cubans to the advancement of human rights for all worldwide. The blood of hundreds of Cubans was spilt on African soil, as they fought beside their African brothers against colonialism and apartheid. Despite our country's modest resources, 14 732 Cubans who collaborate in the health sector and a similar number of Cuban teachers for a total of 17 787 professionals, are deployed in the villages, mountains and other remote corners of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia, sharing the blessings of medical care, education and culture with the peoples of various nations.

Cuba knows that the Government of the United States will go on resorting to falsehood and coercion to sustain its anti-Cuba campaign at the Commission on Human Rights. It needs this infamous tissue of lies as a pretext for intensifying its blockade and other hostilities against the social programme freely undertaken by the Cuban people, with the aim also of eliminating the example they have set by refusing to give up their sovereignty and independence.

The Cuban people reiterates its resolve to keep on fighting to the end for truth and calls for the support of peoples and governments everywhere who regard dignity and commitment to justice, integrity and ethics as principles to be defended at all costs.