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The Miami Herald.
Posted on Thu, Apr. 18, 2002
Tomorrow, the United Nations Human Rights Commission is scheduled to
consider a resolution urging the Castro regime to improve its human-rights
behavior. In the name of humanity, the commission should approve the resolution.
This isn't a useless exercise. No international effort to press the regime
into better behavior is wasted. This year, the human-rights vote has turned into
a remarkable chance to send strong signals to a government that is an
anachronistic aberration.
For the first time, the Cuba resolution, commendably initiated by Uruguay,
has been crafted and broadly supported by Latin American nations.
IMPRISONED, ISOLATED
''The message that Latin America is sending is loud and clear,'' said Ana
Navarro, the head of Nicaragua's delegation to the U.N. Commission in Geneva.
She has been lobbying for approval of the resolution, which now has some 26
cosponsors.
"The Castro regime is a 43-year-old totalitarian regime in a hemisphere
where every other government is democratically elected. It is not like the rest
of us.''
Exactly how Cuba differs is obvious in how it treats its citizens. Vladimiro
Roca, one of Cuba's celebrated activists, has suffered in prison for nearly five
years, mostly in isolation. His ''crime'' was to publicly call for a multiparty
democracy in the essay The Homeland Belongs to All of Us. For this, he was
convicted of sedition and still languishes in a fetid cell, as detailed on
today's Otherviews Page.
For Mr. Roca, hundreds of other political prisoners and the 11 million
Cubans on the island, the quest for basic human rights is a daily struggle. The
resolution is a study in diplomacy. It calls upon Cuba's government to make
''progress in respect of human rights, civil and political rights.'' It also
asks that the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights send a representative to Cuba
to monitor progress.
Cuba's regime, of course, insists that it will never accept a monitor. It
never allowed entry to the U.N. special rapporteur that the commission assigned
to Cuba from 1991 to 1997. No country that respects human rights should have a
problem with such scrutiny.
Cuba's foreign minister has been decrying U.S. ''manipulation'' of the
measure, and its delegates in Geneva have been using their usual threats and
tantrums to try to scare up support. The reason they resort to bullying is
transparent: There's no legitimate justification for the systematic abuse of
human rights committed by Cuba's police state.
MEXICO SIGNS RESOLUTION
Even the Latin American allies that Cuba has long counted on for support are
tired of the charade. They're fed up with the stunts and tirades of a doddering
dictator. After years of abstaining or voting against resolutions chastising
Cuba, Mexico notably signed on to the resolution as a cosponsor this week. Cuba
is exceptional in its disregard for fundamental human rights, and the
international community must call it to account. We commend Uruguay and
Nicaragua for their leadership. We welcome that and commend Mexico for its
decision to join in this resolution.
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