[News] Cuba on UN rejecting Guantanamo investigation

Fri Apr 22 11:19:38 EDT 2005

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STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA

          This morning, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in Geneva 
voted on draft resolution “Question of Detainees in the Area of the United 
States Naval Base in Guantánamo”, which was submitted by Cuba last 14 April 
2005.

          The result of the voting of such text, 8 votes to 22 with 23 
abstentions, is further proof of the hypocrisy and double standard 
prevailing in the CHR, which our country has publicly and repeatedly denounced.

          As usual, the United States government resorted to intimidation 
and blackmail to prevent the adoption of this draft resolution.

          Thus, that government tried to silence international outrage in 
the face of the horrendous photographs of tortures in Abu Ghraib and other 
U.S. detention centers, the revealing testimonies of detainees and of other 
persons who have had access to them, and the outery and condemnation of 
personalities from every walk of life, of parliaments, international 
organizations, NGOs and the world public opinion.

          It will be recalled that Cuba presented a draft resolution on 
this issue to the Commission on Human Rights last year. Then, we did not 
insist on putting it to the vote, mainly at the request of the European Union.

          But at that time, the evidence we have today, on the flagrant and 
systematic violations of human rights of the detainees at the illegal 
Guantanamo Base, was not available. There are over 500 prisoners from more 
than 40 countries, including Europeans and even minors, and it was not 
known that apparently it was this facility where the methods of torture, 
later extended to other U.S. detention centers located outside its 
territory, were first tested.

          Neither was it known that such system of torture had been 
officially sanctioned at the highest levels of the U.S. government and 
legally justified by a decision written in the White House by the present 
U.S. Attorney General.

          The scandalous vote in bloc against this resolution by the 
countries of the European Union is an additional indication of their 
submission to the U.S. government and of their inability to pursue a policy 
of their own, even in an issue on which their respective public opinions, 
the European Parliament and their national parliaments have demanded a 
strong European position in condemning such practices.

           For example, the Resolution adopted on 28 October 2004 by the 
European Parliament not only requested the government of the United States 
to allow an impartial and independent investigation on the allegations of 
torture and mistreatment of all persons deprived of their freedom and under 
their custody, but also instructed the Member States of the European Union 
to present a draft resolution on this issue to the present session of CHR.

           Hence, it was to be expected that the abovementioned Cuban draft 
resolution would have been well received, at least by the Member Countries 
of the European Union which, not having presented their own text, as their 
Parliament had requested, should have co-sponsored the Cuban initiative or, 
at least, voted in favor.

          The Cuban delegation held three rounds of consultation on our 
draft resolution, attended by EU delegations, where their support was 
requested. In addition, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs instructed 
our ambassadors to call on European Foreign Ministries to ask for their 
co-sponsorship and their vote in favor on this significant issue.

          However, several countries did not even receive our ambassadors 
and the Foreign Ministries of others intentionally scheduled the meeting at 
a date after the vote in Geneva. In no case did we have a positive 
response. What our diplomats received were only evasive answers – at times 
courteous, at times disdainful and, even, many times with shame.

          More than one official of European Foreign Ministries, when asked 
the reason for their unwillingness to support the Cuban draft, responded 
that the European policy consisted of “defending their interests while not 
opposing the United States”. The extreme was that an European officer, 
seemingly furious, told a Cuban ambassador that Cuba was to blame for the 
“situation created” in Geneva, in obvious reference to the fact that 
European countries did not know what to do, faced with the quandary of 
upsetting the United States or confronting their own public opinion.

          The truth is that not a single EU country member of the CHR 
co-sponsored the resolution as had been requested from them. The EU 
surrendered yesterday morning, as denounced by Commander-in-Chief Fidel 
Castro Ruz on his TV appearance last night and agreed to vote against the 
Cuban draft in bloc, in spite of the protest by EU countries not members of 
the CHR, which – by not having to vote – argued for a vote of abstention as 
it would not risk US retaliation.

          But the worst is that some of them actively worked in African, 
Asian and Latin American capitals and even in the meeting room in Geneva, 
in close coordination with U.S. diplomats, to prevent the adoption of the 
Cuban draft resolution.

The Cuban draft resolution calls on the Working Group on Arbitrary 
Detention, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Special Rapporteur on the 
Right to Enjoy Physical and Mental Health and the Special Rapporteur on the 
Independence of Judges and Lawyers – CHR mechanisms which the United States 
itself considers impartial and universal – to determine, on the field, the 
truth of the serious charges being brought against the U.S. government for 
its acts in violation of the human rights and dignity of their Guantánamo 
prisoners.

Our people, like hundreds of millions of citizens worldwide, have 
legitimate concerns over what is happening at the U.S.-usurped Guantánamo 
Naval Base. We will not be held back by the fact that the offender is the 
one that continuously presents draft resolutions against our country at the 
Commission on Human Rights, which in an unjustified, selective, 
discriminatory and politized manner, attempt to accuse us of being 
violators of human rights, and being used as a pretext to maintain and 
reinforce the economic, commercial and financial blockade and to create 
conditions that would justify a possible aggression against Cuba.

Cuba has more than enough moral authority and sense of justice to face the 
resolution against our country, co-sponsored and supported by the European 
Union and other satellites in the Imperial orbit, without having to resort 
sophistry of any kind;. Cuba has more than enough gallantry to openly 
present its opinions and proposals, and to request an investigation of what 
has already become an affront that shakes the conscience of mankind.

Our moral standing is based on the undisputable fact that political 
assassinations, disappearances, extra-judicial executions, death squads, 
torture, humiliation and mistreatment of detainees have never existed in 
revolutionary Cuba, neither during our hard struggle for the final 
liberation of our people, nor during the 45 years elapsed since the triumph 
of the Revolution.

In all, it is not a surprise for Cuba that our draft resolution was not 
adopted at this bureaucratic vote of the CHR. It was expected that EU 
countries and some others – with their proverbial hypocrisy and double 
standard – wowed fail to overcome their dependency on the United States, to 
have justice prevail, and to demonstrate their much-ballyhooed concern for 
the respect of human rights worldwide.

The countries that voted against the Cuban draft resolution today have been 
exposed and have become direct and public accomplices to the tortures, 
humiliations and violations of the human rights of the persons illegally 
detained, including some of their own citizens, at the US Guantánamo Naval 
Base and elsewhere.

With this vote, we have fulfiled the valuable objective of putting an end 
to the impunity hidden behind pretense and complicit silence regarding torture.

It has been proven that the Commission on Human Rights is beyond cure. UN 
Member States, in order to build a totally different and universal body 
that is truly at the service of the noble cause of human rights, 
cooperation and dialogue, will have to avoid the danger that the reform of 
the CHR does not give birth to a worse creature.

Our people will never give up its struggle and will persist in its 
denounciation of the crimes committed by the ruling fascist clique in the 
United States.

With a greater morale than ever, Cuba will redouble its struggle in the 
defense of justice, rightness and ethics in favor of the attainment, by all 
the citizens of the planet, of the enjoyment of all human rights.

Havana, 21 April 2005

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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