Source: http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/conferences/hrc2006/four/hrc070321pm-eng.rm?start=02:19:41&end=02:23:34

Human Rights Council
Fourth Session
March 21, 2007

Cuba

Thank you very much, Mr. President.  I would like to thank Mr. Santiago Corcuera for the presentation of his annual report of the working group on enforced and involuntary disappearances.  Cuba believes that it is particularly important to strengthen international efforts to combat enforced and involuntary disappearances.  We must consider all aspects that are associated with this.  One of the most illustrative examples of the criminal brutality that characterizes the systematic practice of enforced and involuntary disappearances is the experience witnessed in last decades in Latin America in the military dictatorships imposed by Washington.  We must not forget that the United States and in particular its---had played a major role, and is responsible for massive and flagrant violations of human rights.  We also recall that the advisory services and logistic help from the U.S. allowed for the coordination between regional intelligence services and ensured an exchange of information and of prisoners including the joint murders that were carried out this Macaba corporation was carried out.

Unfortunately the kidnapping of people in secret areas to be tortured or assassinated is not just a thing of the past.  Today, the so-called war against terrorism, the current administration of the United States has resorted not just to arbitrary detention and cruel and inhuman treatment, but also to kidnappings that are enforced disappearances.  Indeed, in the report presented by Mr. Corcuera, we can see that the working group is still concerned by the program of kidnappings that is carried out by the US authorities.  It is important the working group continue to give follow-up to this issue.

The recent adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nations of the Convention Against Enforced Disappearances is an important milestone in the efforts to prevent this practice.  This is particularly significant for all those families of victims of disappearances and nongovernmental groups who, for so many years, fought so that this crime not be forgotten, and not continue, and not continue to go unpunished.

Cuba has actively participated in the negotiations of this important convention and we were one of the countries that signed on the 6 of February in a ceremony organized in Paris.  Cuba reiterates the importance for the perpetrators of these enforced disappearances be punished, that they not go unpunished, they not enjoy amnesty, and that the necessary measures be taken to bring them to due process.  We must ensure these practices do not continue, and we must ensure that justice prevails.  I thank you.