Source: http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/conferences/hrc2006/four/hrc070315pm1-eng.rm?start=02:18:08&end=02:21:32

Human Rights Council, Fourth Session
March 15, 2007
Introduction of progress reports from the institution–building

Cuba
 
Thank you, Mr. President.  First and foremost, I’d like to say that we’re grateful for the documents given to us by the facilitators and for the presentation of each document.  Unfortunately, we are not in a very good position to discuss them since they were only distributed last night- we can’t go through each document on a document by document basis.  However, we would like to make some general comments on the text that we have before us and in this regard we would like to call your attention to the fact that there are some areas where the text are very concrete and specific and so it’s possible to think about an agreement being very close in those areas, whereas there are other issues in the documents where there are too many pending sub-issues and where there are many issues to be addressed.

We believe that with the central goal in mind, we should focus on the basic issues that we need to find agreement on before the 18th of June in order to comply with the mandate given to us by Resolution 60/251.  And perhaps we should then leave the specifics and the details for subsequent discussions that can be taking place either within working groups or in some other forum to focus on the fundamental.  That is agree on basic modalities for the UPR, decide on the expert body, establish the mechanisms for complaint and then really focus on the heart of this process which is the review of the mandates.  In our mind that should be clearly geared to rescuing what is good and salvageable from the old Human Rights Commission and that is the thematic issues because the thematic issues are the same and apply to all states equally. And then we can eradicate those mandates that were established by resolutions that were politically motivated- those coming from countries.  That was the main cause, I should say, of the loss of credibility in the Human Rights Commission.  Thus, we believe it’s important to resolve this issue through the whole process of revising the mandates.

Now, having said that, Mr. President, in the very short period of time we had available to study these documents, and the short amount of time allotted for us to speak, it is impossible to go into details on these, but Cuba’s position is what we said in the working group and in the contributions that we have given to the facilitators.  We just wish to express to all the facilitators our full preparedness to continue working constructively with them in order to achieve an agreement with as much support as possible prior to the 18th of June.  Thank you.