U.S. Fumes Over Cuba's Re-Election to U.N. Rights Panel

FNC ^ | 04/30/03 | Jim Angle

[m1-lightning]

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday expressed outrage that Cuba has been re-elected to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, only three weeks after rounding up dozens of dissidents and sending them to prison.

"This is a setback for the cause of human rights. Cuba does not deserve a seat on the Human Rights Commission. Cuba deserves to be investigated by the Human Rights Commission," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

While the United States was preoccupied with the Iraq war, Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrested 78 dissidents, journalists and librarians and "tried" them for treason, giving them varying prison sentences of as long as 28 years.

The same commission that by acclamation Tuesday allowed Cuba to remain a member, earlier this month voted to investigate the mass arrests. It was treated with resistance.

"The Human Rights Commission wanted to send investigators into Cuba and Cuba said 'no.' And yet, today, Cuba gets re-elected to the Human Rights Commission. It raises troubling issues, and that's why the United States is speaking out about it," Fleischer said.

The Bush administration lobbied against the vote to keep Cuba on the panel, but in the end threw up its hands, suggesting the commission is a lost cause.

"You have to keep in mind that Libya is the chairman of this committee. There are some things that happen at the United Nations that it's very hard for anybody to explain," Fleischer said.

U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Economic Social Council Sichan Siv, who served as the U.S. representative at Tuesday's commission meeting, got up and walked out when it became clear Cuba was going to win the vote.

"It was an outrage for us because we view Cuba as the worst violator of human rights in this hemisphere," he said.

Siv said the arrests aren't the only travesties committed by Castro. Cubans trying to escape Castro's regime have mounted several hijackings recently, including a plane flown to Key West and a ferryboat also headed to Florida. While hijackings are illegal, Castro didn't bother with anything like a trial, Siv said.

"They arrested three hijackers. After one week of incarceration, they shot them — no trial no justice or nothing," he said.

Castro's summary executions surprised and dismayed even his longtime defenders. It also riled longtime critics in the U.S. Congress.

"Allowing Cuba to stay on the Human Rights Commission is like honoring Saddam Hussein with the Nobel Peace Prize," said Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley.

Foley is introducing a congressional resolution calling on the United Nations to reverse its decision.

Fox News' Jim Angle contributed to this report.

[m1-lightning]

Sure, until the next jimmy carter gets elected and signs a bunch of agreements with them.

[SquirrelKing]

Un-FREAKIN'-believable.

[1Old Pro]

The U.N is about as funny and outrageous as Bagdad Bob. Which makes me think, shouldn't Bagdad Bob replace Kofi Annan?

[Yardstick]

"This is a setback for the cause of human rights. Cuba does not deserve a seat on the Human Rights Commission. Cuba deserves to be investigated by the Human Rights Commission."

The administration's moral clarity impresses me once again.

[kidd]

That a good point. However, then we have a bigger problem than the UN.

[m1-lightning]

www.just15.org

[Smile-n-Win]

Castro's summary executions surprised and dismayed even his longtime defenders.

Another great example of how confused liberals are.

[DED]

FWIW, I ran a search for both Cuba and human rights before I posted. Got nothing more recent than several days ago.

[yonif]

creating a Palestinian arab state, as the US wants be done, will be a set back to human rights as well.

[m1-lightning]

Castro's summary executions surprised and dismayed even his longtime defenders.

So many were surprised of Saddam's atrocities as well.

[m1-lightning]

How is that a setback?

[m1-lightning]

Ping

[Cabbages and Kings]

Actually we need to send a 'copy-boy' or janitor from the State Department as our representative on most issues, anything important comes up then our Ambassador can show up to veto it!

[Schnucki]

CNN keeps saying that the nomination wasn't contested by anyone (including the U.S.) and they're implying that any outrage is hypocritical.

[m1-lightning]

The Communist's News Network said that?

[grapeape]

We don't need to send these people 300,000,000 dollars anymore. They stand around and laugh at us while they do this crap to us. We need to do something now while we can.

[m1-lightning]

It's a tought descision. Send them $1 and veto them to death or leave and backstab them in every gloabal opportunity.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Willful blindness shattered by Cuba's crackdown - Castro shows the brutal face of his regime*** Perhaps the biggest shock was felt by the writers, poets and artists who have long defended Cuba and its autocratic ruler. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes called the country "a suffocating dictatorship", the Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago said Fidel Castro "cheated his enemies" and the Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, who once praised him as a "symbol of national dignity", acknowledged that the crackdown had fuelled opposition claims that he was a dictator. There have been demonstrations in Caracas and Madrid.***

[Orlando]

Does anybody know the website of the UN Human Rights Comm ?
It should be interesting to see what the UN Human Rights
is doing .

[grapeape]

Now your talking.

Lets give them a good ole butt-whippin. Every day. They won't be laughing anymore when they have no money to throw around! Our money at that.

If you want to backstab them in every global opportunity it would be easier to do that through the UN. Whether it's through it or not these people still haven't learned that we are serious about the BS that they are pulling. We are not going to take it any more.