Editorial. Published Friday, March 31, 2000, in the Miami Herald.
Trying to hide behind a boy
Visitors to Geneva, where the United Nations Human Rights Commission is now meeting, might think that the Elian Gonzalez case falls under its jurisdiction. The city has been plastered with posters depicting the boy as if he were a prisoner behind bars. In fact, the posters -- hung by the Cuban
delegation -- represent a crass move by Cuba's totalitarian regime to use the 6-year-old to divert attention from its countless violations of fundamental human rights, including its harshest crackdown on dissent in a decade.
The United Nations commissioners mustn't be deceived when they consider a resolution -- commendably offered by the Czech Republic and Poland -- branding Cuba as the human-rights abuser that it is. Recently, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said of Cuba: ``Castro represses
independent journalists to the point of extinction, forcing them to flee the country to avoid detention and arrest seemingly for even thinking about covering a trial of dissidents or a public demonstration that would reflect unfavorably on his complete control.''
All told, some 40 of Cuba's 100 independent journalists were detained for brief periods last year. At least 10 were harassed into exile. Four remain in jail on charges ranging from ``dangerousness'' to ``disrespect'' for Castro to ``hoarding.'' They are Bernardo Arevalo Padron, Jesus Joel Diaz
Hernandez, Manuel Gonzalez Castellanos and Victor Rolando Arroyo. In its report Attacks on the Press in 1999, the CPJ once again names Cuban dictator Fidel Castro among its top 10 ``Enemies of the Press.''
Add the U.S. State Department's annual human-rights assessment of Cuba, and reports from the Inter American Press Association and Amnesty International, and it is clear there has been no improvement. If anything, the gains made by dissidents and Cuba's church after the Pope's visit in 1998 have
eroded.
The regime systematically targets journalists, along with the much-broader dissident movement. Instead of long, visible prison terms, it now dishes out relentless harassment. This ``low-intensity repression,'' as celebrated independent journalist Raul Rivero has termed it, has astonishingly
effective results.
If it is true to its values, the European Union will not only support the resolution condemning Cuba, but it will encourage member countries to sign on as sponsors. Whatever diplomats may think of the Elian case, it mustn't shift attention from the Cuban government's real, systemic and barbaric
human-rights abuses.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald |