The annual meeting of the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission has censured the communist island for its lack of democracy and free speech every year over the past decade except 1998. But in wording that will likely draw U.S. protest as well, the draft measure produced by Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru and Uruguay simply asks Cuba to accept a visit by a U.N. monitor appointed earlier this year by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Censure by the U.N. body brings no penalties but draws international attention to a country's rights record.
A spokesman for the U.S. mission to U.N. European offices in Geneva said only that the United States supported the efforts of the sponsoring nations to address the human rights situation in Cuba. In Cuba, at least 75 people, including independent journalists, been arrested since the crackdown was launched last week, according to the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation. ***
These include well-calculated timing -- in this case, amid a major world crisis that distracted international attention; knowing where to draw the line, such as avoiding the arrest of Cuba's best-known dissident, Oswaldo Payá; and taking actions that can later be reversed, to portray the government as lenient. ''Castro is a master of international theater,'' said Steve Johnson, a policy analyst for Latin America at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. ``This is all part of a calculated effort to keep people cowed.'' ''But it's a kind of reversible measure that can be taken,'' he said. ``It strikes fear and will always work to their advantage to lighten up and let people out later because then it shows some progress.''***