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STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY
OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA
Scandalous EU vote in Geneva
reflects
its inability to follow its own policy
THIS morning, the Commission on
Human Rights (CHR) in Geneva voted on the 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 Guantánamo 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
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