Explanation+of+Cuban+vote+for+UN+Human+Rights+Council

New York, 15 March 2006
Mr. President:

The decision to establish the Human Rights Council was adopted from the urgent necessity to put an end to the huge discredit which the Commission on Human Rights was brought to as a consequence of the political manipulation, hypocrisy and double standards imposed on its works by the United Sates and the European Union.

The draft being submitted today to the decision of the General Assembly is by no means a response to the challenge that summoned us. Nothing in the aforementioned text will prevent the repetition in the new Council of the traditional maneuvers by the powers of the North to unjustly condemn the Third World countries.

We were hoping for the establishment of a Council that contributes to the strengthening of the international system of promotion and protection of human rights through a genuine cooperation. However, the United States and its allies insist in making the punitive and sanctioning approach prevail, this time aggravated by the capacity to “suspend” the rights of those who question, interfere or just disagree with the hegemonic domination plans of the Empire.

In the months that have gone by during the current process, we have seen with indignation how the United States and its allies have exerted strong pressures and resorted to their traditional blackmail to break the resistance to this new plot.

The text that will be adopted does not represent a balance point of the negotiation positions as many would like to make believe. It is the negative reflection of the dangerous unipolar world that the Bush Administration is trying to legitimate; a world submitted to the force of power, in which reason and justice would have no value.

We were never deceived by the loudmouthed objections of the Washington representatives. The fact that today the United States has requested the voting on the text does not mean that it was not conceived and negotiated behind the scenes to accommodate its main demands, sacrificing vital interests of the countries of the South.

The attacks of the current US Administration to the text being adopted today prove their arrogance. They lose nothing with this project. On the contrary, they have assured new means to exert confrontation, hatred and punishment, and if they protest today, is because they intended to get new concessions.

It means that, no matter how much their interests are satisfied, the superpower always wants more in its craving for hegemony and domination.

Mr. President:

The draft resolution L.48 has serious omissions and it includes elements that do not respond to the positions expressed throughout the process by the majority of the Member States. Consequently, Cuba reaffirms its serious reservations to its content.

The resolution being adopted today:


 * Reduces the number of members relative to the CHR, to the detriment of the representativeness of the body. Why, if human rights are universal and concern everybody, should the decision-making mechanism be reduced? Had the High-level Panel not recommended that, due to this fact, the new body be of universal composition?


 * Endorses a suspension clause to the members of the Council that may be activated with the support of two thirds of the present and voting, without establishing a minimum limit of required votes. A country elected with the support of more than 96 States, may be suspended of its rights by the will of a lesser number of countries. We the peoples of the South, besides continuing to be subjected to unjust condemning resolutions, will be submitted in the future to the latent danger of being deprived of our access, won in elections, to that body.


 * Nothing limits the pernicious and handy practice of imposing politically motivated resolutions on the countries of the South, without subjection or respect to any //criteria.//


 * The right to development, main demand of the large majority of the world, has been ignored. The fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance has been obviated negligently.

A Council with these characteristics will not only allow the United States and its allies to have a strengthened inquisition tribunal against the peoples of the South; it will also assure them the impunity they already enjoyed in the CHR.

Will it be possible in the new Council to approve a resolution demanding the United States to be accountable and to assume responsibilities for the tortures and other serious human rights violations perpetrated in the illegal US naval base of Guantanamo, the Abu Graib prison or on the flights and secret detention centers operated by the CIA in Europe?

The current US Administration seeks to impose its spurious interests on the current reform and redesign process of the international system that the United Nations represents. Those who mistakenly think that a policy of appeasement and systematic concessions will allow us to gain time and sate the appetite of the neoconservatives that have seized the White House, should study the experiences of the past and value the lessons learned of those cases on which the international community tolerated in a conciliatory and negligent manner the aggressive actions of a power with hegemonic intentions. Cuba does its duty of denouncing these facts.

Mr. President:

Notwithstanding its serious reservations and taking into consideration, above all, the requests it has been receiving from friendly delegations, Cuba will vote in favor of draft resolution A/60/L.48.

Our country will work in the Human Rights Council so as justice, the International Law, the genuine dialogue and the so necessary international cooperation in favor of the promotion and protection of all the human rights for all nations and peoples can prevail.

Thank you very much.