Yahoo! May 4, 2001
Cuba President Castro to Visit Iran
By Afshin Valinejad, Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran 4 (AP) - Cuban President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) will
visit Iran on Monday, a government official said, presumably for a meeting
between the leaders of two nations the State Department says are sponsors of
international terrorism.
The trip, part of a far-flung tour that also includes Algeria and Malaysia,
will come seven months after Iranian President Mohammad Khatami (news - web
sites) met with Castro during an official visit to Cuba following an OPEC (news
- web sites) summit in nearby Venezuela.
"President Castro will arrive in Tehran on Monday night for a three-day
visit in response to President Khatami's visit last year to Cuba,'' a
presidential official said Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In January, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque visited Iran to
discuss increasing trade and investment between the two countries. Another topic
of discussion was U.S. trade sanctions against both countries, which are among
the seven nations that the State Department classifies as "sponsors of
international terrorism.''
Castro is to start his far-ranging tour on Saturday in Algeria, according to
Algerie Presse Service, the country's official news agency.
After three days in Algeria, he travels to Iran and then on to Malaysia,
where he is expected to make his first official visit May 11-13.
"We will discuss bilateral cooperation, the world economic situation -
all these things are subjects for discussions,'' Malaysian Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad said Friday in Kuala Lumpur.
Castro also may visit Qatar on the Arabian Peninsula across the Gulf from
Iran. Perez Roque said during a visit to Qatar in February that Castro likely
would visit later in the year.
Such a big trip is a rarity these days for the Cuban leader, whose travels
in the past decade have been concentrated in the Western Hemisphere, primarily
for regional summits in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In earlier years, however, Castro's tours included Algeria, Libya and South
Yemen, a former Marxist state that has since merged with the more
Western-oriented North Yemen.
Cuba Creates New Ministry
HAVANA, 3 (AP) - As part of its drive to wipe out corruption and
inefficiency, the communist government announced Thursday it was creating a new
cabinet-level watchdog - the Audit and Control Ministry.
The creation of the new ministry is designed "to elevate and preserve
integrity and discipline in the administration of the state's resources, as well
as prevent and detect signs of corruption,'' the Communist Party daily Granma
said.
Granma said the new ministry will be overseen by party Central Committee
member Lina Pedraza, and will replace the National Audit Office, which she also
oversaw.
The move comes a little more than a month after the government announced
that Orlando Rodriguez Romay would step down as Minister of Fishing for alleged
failure to detect serious cases of corruption involving midlevel managers.
At the time, the government said that an investigation failed to detect any
corrupt activity by the fishing minister himself, or any other high-ranking
ministry official. It said the corruption consisted of unauthorized commissions
and gifts accepted by mid-level officials.
U.S. Voted Out of U.N. Rights Group
By EDITH LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States, a vocal critic of human rights
records of China and Cuba, lost its seat Thursday on the top U.N. rights body
for the first time since the commission was established in 1947.
The U.S. ouster comes the same day Sudan and several other nations with poor
track records on human rights were elected to the panel.
Diplomats gave various reasons for the U.S. loss, including the current
absence of a U.S. ambassador at the world organization and relatiation for
frequent American criticism of rights abuses in other countries.
In voting for spots on the 53-member U.N. Humans Rights Commission, the
United States was edged out by three European countries - a loss that means the
United States will not be able to vote for at least a year on commission
resolutions.
"It was an election, understandably, where we're very disappointed,''
said acting U.S. ambassador James Cunningham. "This won't at all, of
course, affect our commitment to human rights issues in and outside of the
United Nations (news - web sites). We'll continue to pursue them.''
Eleanor Roosevelt, the late U.S. first lady and human rights advocate, was
the commission's first chairperson, and the United States has traditionally
played a very active role in its debates. In recent years, it has been in the
forefront of efforts to condemn human rights abuses in Cuba, China and other
countries.
The commission, which usually meets in Geneva, makes recommendations on the
protection and promotion of human rights - either on its own initiative or at
the request of the General Assembly or the Security Council.
It is part of the U.N. Economic and Social Council, which chooses the
commission's new members to three-year terms. Roughly a third are elected each
year.
Candidates are nominated by regional groups, and the Western Europe and
Others Group proposed four candidates for three seats: the United States,
France, Austria and Sweden.
In the balloting at U.N. headquarters in New York, France got 52 votes,
Austria 41 votes, Sweden 32 votes and the United States 29 votes.
Though the United States will not be able to vote on commission resolutions,
it can still initiate and co-sponsor resolutions and lobby other governments to
vote a particular way.
U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson expressed hope that the United
States "will return speedily as a member of the commission,'' saying it has
made "a historic contribution,'' spokesman Jose Luis Diaz said in a
statement released in Geneva.
But Cuba's Foreign Ministry called the vote proof of "the arrogance and
coercive methods'' it claimed that Washington regularly employs in international
organizations. Cuba said it hoped the United States would "take note of the
pertinent conclusions of this lesson,'' said a statement carried by Cuba's
Prensa Latina news service.
Speculation among diplomats on reasons for the U.S. ouster ranged from poor
lobbying and the absence of an ambassador to the makeup of the commission and
U.S. condemnation of rights abuses around the world.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a member of the U.S. delegation to last month's
commission meeting in Geneva, said the underlying problem is that "gross
violators of human rights'' - including China - seek membership on the
commission "to avoid scrutiny.''
Sudan, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Togo - all countries with poor human rights
records - were elected onto the commission Thursday, Human Rights Watch noted.
They join Syria, Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam, also frequently
accused of rights abuses, elected to the commission last year.
"This is a rogues' gallery of human rights abusers,'' said Joanna
Weschler, the U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch. "A country's
human rights record should be the single most important factor in whether or not
it joins the commission. An abusive country cannot honestly pass judgment on
other abusive countries.''
Election to seats on U.N. bodies also involves intense lobbying.
The United States has been at a diplomatic disadvantage since the January
departure of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, a Clinton appointee. President Bush
(news - web sites) nominated veteran diplomat John Negroponte as U.N. ambassador
in March, but his nomination has not yet been sent to the Senate.
Rep. Nita Lowey (news - bio - voting record), D-N.Y., co-chair of the
Bipartisan Congressional U.N. Working Group, called the vote "an
embarrassment for our country'' and blamed Bush for dragging his feet in getting
key foreign policy officials confirmed.
"The U.S. commitment to human rights has fallen victim to the
administration's laissez-faire attitude toward diplomacy and foreign policy,''
she said.
Weschler said the vote "should come as a wake-up call'' to Washington.
She noted a growing resentment toward the United States by both Western and
developing countries over U.S. opposition to the treaty to abolish landmines,
the Bush administration's refusal to ratify the treaty creating an International
Criminal Court and its opposition to making AIDS (news - web sites) drugs freely
available.
Cunningham refused to say whether he thought the U.S. ouster was the result
of growing anger against the United States for taking too many unilateral
positions on issues such as a national missile defense shield and pulling out of
the 1997 Kyoto treaty to curb global warning.
"I don't want to speculate on what might have been the motives
underlying the outcome of the election,'' he said.
The United States is not the first country from its group to lose a seat:
France lost its spot in 1977 and Britain was voted off in 1977 and 1991.
Other countries elected to the commission in contested votes were Bahrain,
South Korea and Pakistan from the Asia Group, and Croatia and Armenia from the
Eastern Europe Group. The Latin America Group selected Chile and Mexico without
a vote, and the African Group chose Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo and Uganda, also
without a vote.
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