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Cuba, the U.N. Human Rights
Commission and the OAS Race
Harold
Doan and Associates,
CA, May 2 2005. Press Release - Council
On Hemispheric Affairs. This analysis was
prepared by COHA Senior Research Fellow,
Barbara Gonzalez.
The United States successfully presented
a resolution to the UN Human Rights Commission
criticizing Cuba's human rights record.
This year's document, deemed as "mild,"
passed with 21 votes supporting it, 17 against
and 15 abstentions.
Even though such resolutions on Cuba have
been presented since 1990, a hemispheric
consensus on them has never emerged. While
some Latin American governments back the
criticism, others oppose it, seeing it as
a cynical manipulation of a serious human
rights issue in order to promote the isolation
of the island and to justify the decades-old
embargo.
Cuba's status as a member of the Organization
of American States (OAS) has been suspended
since 1962, but the island maintains a voice
in regards to the future of the hemispheric
body which will no doubt continue to be
heard in the forthcoming weeks through friendly
surrogates. Mexico's unsuccessful bid to
head the OAS, in particular, was negatively
affected by the coincidence of the Geneva
Commission with the latter stages of the
OAS race, to Mexico's disadvantage.
The Fox government has faced a series of
difficult choices in recent weeks. Abstention
on the Cuba vote would not seem feasible
due to the "softness" of this
year's resolution and the government's publicized
commitment to the promotion of human rights.
Its desire to please the U.S. was another
important element to further encourage voting
for the resolution. Even though Mexico eventually
voted in favor of the resolution, this decision
generated even bigger problems for Fox than
risking the internal approval of his foreign
policy initiatives, including the Bush administration's
lukewarm support of Derbez's candidacy.
Last Tuesday, at the 61st meeting of the
UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, the
U.S. put forth a resolution on the situation
of human rights in Cuba. This year's resolution-co-sponsored
by the European Union-was described as "mild."
The U.S., prudently bowing to reality, was
only able to press for the extension of
a UN expert's tenure dedicated to examining
human rights observances in Cuba and reporting
back to the Commission. It does not even
ask for the Cuban government to receive
the UN monitor (which it always refuses
to do) nor does it cite specific violations.
Ever since 1990, when the first of such
resolutions were presented, the Cuban government
has consistently deemed them as a U.S. scheme
to promote the international isolation of
the island. Cuban foreign minister Felipe
Perez Roque led a campaign to oppose the
approval of this new resolution, even going
so far as to give false assurances that
Washington would fail to gather enough support
to pass the resolution.
A Region Divided
Latin American members on the Commission
were divided on the Cuba vote, as was the
case in previous reunions. Last year Argentina,
Brazil and Paraguay chose to abstain, arguing
that the passing of the resolution was in
fact not about human rights and thus refused
to add their efforts to the condemnation
of Cuba. Of the 12 Latin American nation-states
on this year's Commission, only Costa Rica,
Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico voted in
favor of the resolution. With the exception
of Cuba, which opposed it, the others abstained.
Argentina and Brazil maintained their respective
abstentions from last year and were additionally
joined by Peru, Ecuador and the Dominican
Republic. Strikingly, the division on the
Cuba vote reflects a similar division as
shown in the OAS race.
The vote on Cuba seems to have become a
reference point for Latin American governments
to characterize their ideology, as leftist
and left-of-center countries have traditionally
abstained or voted against the resolutions.
These governments have also tended to underscore
their diplomatic ties to Cuba, an attestation
to their degree of independence in foreign
policy making.
The Cuba vote has been a controversial
matter since the beginning of the Fox administration
in 2000. Traditionally, with Mexico voting
in favor of the anti-Havana resolutions
for the last three years, Mexico had endeavored
to act as a bridge between the U.S. and
Cuba, reliably denouncing the embargo while
striving to maintain correct ties with Havana.
It is important to recall that Mexico was
one of the few countries in the hemisphere
to oppose the suppression of Cuba's membership
in the OAS in 1962, at the behest of the
Kennedy administration. The Fox government
publicly has decried the pragmatism lying
behind Mexico's abstention vote. Since Mexico
had opened its doors to international scrutiny,
it supported the principle that other countries
should do so as well. As a result, Mexico's
international stance on human rights went
from defensive to offensive. Voting for
the resolutions on Cuba was justified as
the only policy compatible with the Fox
government's pledge to promote human rights
internally and abroad and this was the rationale
given to opponents within Mexico of the
Fox axiom.
Mexico's Change of Heart: Defensive to
Offensive Although one might not easily
recognize it, the U.S. has applauded this
stance as the best it could obtain when
it asked for the Mexican endorsement of
this year's resolution. U.S. ambassador
Tony Garza went so far as to publish an
article in the Mexican newspaper La Reforma,
praising the Fox government on its commitment
to human rights and citing as "an example,"
its recent leadership within the Geneva
Commission. Having backed the Mexican candidate
to head the OAS during the second round
of voting, after its initial preference,
former Salvadoran president Francisco Flores
dropped out of the race, the U.S. expected
that Mexico would coordinate its vote on
Cuba with Washington's strategy.
The coincidence of the Geneva Commission,
roughly happening at the same time as the
race to elect the next Secretary General
of the OAS, posed a dilemma for the Fox
government. Its human rights platform and
its desire to please the U.S. strongly encouraged
a fourth consecutive vote for the Cuba resolution.
The "mildness" of this year's
document would, in other circumstances,
have made the decision even easier by eliminating
the possibility of abstention. However,
the Fox administration faced bigger problems
than risk appearing inconsistent or provoking
the U.S. into withdrawing its support for
Mexico's minister of foreign affairs, Luis
Derbez, to head the OAS. In reaction to
the Mexican vote in Geneva, the Cuban government
could choose to play a wild card that would
pose a threat to Mexico's own political
stability.
Already significantly deteriorated, Mexico-Cuba
relations have gone from bad to worse since
2000. The lowest point hit was last year
when Mexico expelled the Cuban ambassador
and accused the Castro government of intervening
in Mexico's national affairs. This move
was in response to the government's detention
and deportation of Mexican-Argentine businessman
Carlos Ahumada, who was implicated in an
intricate political scandal in Mexico involving
some of the country's most notorious politicians
and government officials. Although the ambassadors
were soon reinstalled, lasting wounds have
certainly not healed.
Fox Administration's Decision: The OAS
Race or the Cuba Resolution?
Cuba's influence in the Caribbean is widely
recognized. In the latter phase of his ultimately
successful campaign, Chilean candidate Minister
Jose Miguel Insulza declared his willingness
to "revise" Cuba's suspension
from the OAS. The Cuban lobby, adding to
that of Brazil and Venezuela, certainly
diminished Derbez's chances to gather further
incremental support in the Caribbean, where
he had noted that more votes were needed
to ensure victory. However, the Fox government
chose to act on "principle" and
be an "example," as celebrated
by Ambassador Tony Garza, and voted in favor
of the Cuba resolution in Geneva. Thus,
Mexico has placed itself at serious political
risk.
The Cuban government claims to possess
some 40 hours of video footage containing
Ahumada's embarrassing declarations. Although
the Mexican government repeatedly has asked
for its return, Cuba's position, as declared
last October by ambassador to Mexico, Jorge
Bolaños, is that there is no hurry
to hand over the videos and that the government
is entitled to act according to its own
interests in deciding the matter. Most analysts
are united in their conclusions that the
videos could prove to be extremely harmful
to the Fox administration. Some have speculated
that they contain proof of a strategy on
the part of the federal government to remove
Mexico City's leftist Mayor Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador from the presidential race.
Jorge Castañeda, former Mexican foreign
affairs minister and now independent candidate
for the presidency, has stated that "there
is something in those videos" that
could well allow La Habana to blackmail
the Fox government if it chose to do so.
It is reasonable for Castañeda to
breed such thoughts because he himself got
into a dicey situation while in office whereby
his desire to accommodate the U.S. vis-à-vis
Mexico, deeply offended Havana without providing
notable advantages for Mexico.
The PRI and PAN members of the Mexican
Congress recently voted to strip Lopez Obrador
of his immunity from prosecution on charges
of ignoring a court ruling in the El Encino
land dispute. Lopez Obrador's supporters
have denounced the decision as an act of
political manipulation to prevent the current
leader in the polls from running for the
presidency in 2006. The affair, spurring
much criticism in Mexico as well as abroad,
while calling into question the legitimacy
of Mexico's democracy, eventually resulted
in the Attorney General's resignation as
a result of the mounting political polarization.
It is in this climate that a Cuban decision
to disclose more of Ahumada's video-documented
declarations could prove to be particularly
damaging to the Fox administration. Because
of Mexico's condemning vote in Geneva, Cuba
is likely to retaliate in some manner at
a later point.
Copyright
Harold Doan and Associates Ltd. 2004-2005
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