Source: – HYPERLINK http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/conferences/hrc2006/five/hrc070612pm1-eng.rm?start=01:29:40&end=01:34:40 http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/conferences/hrc2006/five/hrc070612pm1-eng.rm?start=01:29:40&end=01:34:40
Date: June 12, 2007


Human Rights Council

Statement of Cuba as a Concerned Country on the Report of the Personal Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Cuba

Mr. President.  The fast is about to come to and end.  Soon the curtain will come down to put an end to this grotesque spectacle.  It will carry with it the hypocrisy, double standards, and complicities which plunged a disgraced commission into discredit.  The mandate of the so-called special representative is a heavy burden inherited from the old commission.  Her situation reports deserve no credibility whatsoever.  The special representative has been juggling on a tightrope.  She has been the instrument of her times. The Cuba she is trying to present to us is the media image projected by the big misinformation trans-nationals.  An image that is artificially concocted in the laboratories of the CIA and the White House.  But, the true reality is quite different.  It is a reality that does not appear in her reports.  It is the reality of a Cuba that labors, that builds.  It is the Cuba that sends legions of doctors to save lives and relieve pain from the highest reaches of the Himalayas and the African plains to the poor mountains of our Caracas.  A Cuba that takes the torch of education to those who don’t know how to read or write from neighboring [inaudible] to the distant [inaudible] and its native peoples.  It is the Cuba of rebellion. The Cuba that resists.  The Cuba that no one has been able to bring to its knees. The Cuba that dissents, that differs in its view from the unjust world order.  The Cuba that dreams, goes, and fights for a better world for all.  

The special representative would have much more to say about Cuba, but not wanting to upset the power for she prefers not to do so.  She could, for instance, join us in our fight to close down the concentration camp and put end to the torture and humiliation of hundreds of people in the territory illegally occupied by the US Naval base in Guantanamo.  She could also add her voice to the voice of those who strongly condemn the recent release in the United State of the most dangerous terrorist and murder in the entire Western hemisphere, Luis Posada Calimez, who is responsible, among other crimes, for the mid-air explosion of a Cuban civilian airliner – an act that claimed the lives of 73 innocent people.  She could even join the huge local campaign and tireless struggle by our local people to uphold the cause of the five Cuban courageous young men who are unfairly and cruelly being kept prisoner in the United States for fighting against terrorism and defending the lives of Cuban people.  But we already know that she prefers not to do any of that. 

Mr. President, at any rate, this practice we are engaged in represents the past and our eyes are now firmly fixed on the future.  This is why Cuba voted in favor of resolution 60/251 which established the Human Rights Council.  It is for this reason that Cuba submitted its courtesy to the council and undertook certain commitments to this body and was elected by 135 votes in favor, more than two thirds of the members of the United Nations General Assembly.  It is for all of this that Cuba has worked throughout the past year in a constructive manner and in a sprit of cooperation. It is also for this reason that the second year in the life of the human rights council should start off by throwing overboard this heavy burden handed down to us from the past.  Cuba hopes that the final outcome of the process of institution building in the council will reflect the broader interests of the third world and the Non-Aligned Movement.  Cuba reaffirms its commitment to this new body and its mechanisms, including the Universal Peer Review mechanism.  And, it will work to put an end to double standards and politically motivated selectivity.  Cuba is also ready – as repeatedly generations of Cubans have done throughout our history – to continue its struggle until we achieve full justice.