The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier. Friday, April 28, 2000
Elian Gonzalez has been a welcome diversion for Fidel Castro, turning world attention away from the Castro regime's ruthless repression of all dissent and suppression of all basic freedoms.
As a result, the latest condemnation of totalitarian Cuba by the United Nations Human Rights Commission went largely unnoticed. Yet, last week Castro's Cuba received a severe reprimand from the commission.
The vote was 21-18, with 14 countries abstaining, to censure Cuba for "the continued repression of members of the political opposition and ... detention of dissidents." The resolution also took the Castro dictatorship to task for "continued violation of human rights and
fundamental freedoms ... such as freedom of expression, association and assembly and the rights associated with the administration of justice."
Since 1991, when the collapse of the Soviet Union allowed the U.N. commission to do a better job of monitoring human rights, Cuba has been condemned every year except for 1998.
It was unfortunate that while the spotlight was on the 6-year-old boy whose mother lost her life trying to flee with him to freedom in the United States, the larger picture of repression in Cuba illuminated by the U.N. Human Rights Commission was underreported.
There has never been enough attention focused on Castro's ruthless repression of human rights. For years, Amnesty International gave scant coverage to the plight of thousands of political prisoners who have passed through the dictator's jails. Along with the U.N. Human Rights Commission and
all other international organizations that protect individual liberties, Amnesty was refused permission to enter Cuba to investigate.
But over the past decade, despite being barred from the country, Amnesty and other human rights organizations have managed to document violations of human rights and keep track of some of the prisoners of conscience in Castro's jails. Amnesty estimates that currently about 500 political
prisoners are in custody.
It is worth noting the fury that Castro directed at the Czech Republic, which was the prime sponsor of the resolution condemning the Castro regime. Castro mobilized a crowd of more than 100,000 demonstrators to march past the embassy and yell insults. And Castro himself took part in a
television program during which Czech President Vaclav Havel was derided and ridiculed.
Pedro de la Hoz of the official Communist Party newspaper Granma described President Havel as a dissident fabricated by the West. "They fabricated Vaclav Havel in a very similar way to how they try to fabricate dissidents in other countries, such as our own, where people with no
talent, with absolutely great intellectual mediocrity, try to pass as poets," he said.
It is important for the U.N. commission, Amnesty International and all the other human rights organizations to intensify their scrutiny of the Castro dictatorship. When world attention is focused on Cuba's human rights record, there are fewer arrests and less persecution of dissidents.
Continued intensive monitoring of Cuba will also mean that if Elian is returned, he will be able to grow up in a less repressive society. |