Last week, the Security Council of the United Nations took an historic vote to elect a new Human Rights Council. The vote was historic not only because of all the international lobbying and jockeying for membership leading up to last Tuesday’s vote; it was also historic because a majority of member states had expressed dissatisfaction with the human rights records of many members of the previous Council and were strong in their expressed desire to see a newly-constituted organization.
The Human Rights Council is that arm of the UN meant to serve as watchdog over all countries to ensure that the fundamental rights and freedoms of all human beings on the planet are protected. Special attention is paid to the rights of women and children, migrants, prisoners and prisoners-of-war. The Commissionﾒs mandate includes strengthening human rights legislation in member countries, preventing abuse and encouraging total respect for laws, treaties and agreements within and among nations.
Over the years, some countries, members of the previous Commission have come under blistering attack by international human rights groups for their harsh and inhumane treatment towards their own citizens as well towards refugees, prisoners-of-war, political and religious dissenters of all stripes.
The movement leading towards last Tuesdayﾒs vote was marked by scathing attacks on the human rights records of countries like China, Cuba, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and others who were seeking membership on the new Commission. “How can a nation like China be expected to function as an international guardian of the rights and freedoms of people from other nations,” many human rights organizations queried, “when in China itself, citizens are not free to live out their lives in whatever manner they choose?”
In our region, Venezuela and Cuba had both indicated their desire to serve on the new Commission. The United States, long opposed to just about anything Cuban, and recently at odds with President Chavezﾒs aggressively socialist direction in Venezuela, refused to offer for a seat on the Council. The proposals for the new Council did not go far enough, claimed the Americans, and in standard diplomatic fashion, they set about trying to convince other nations to vote against the election of certain nations to the Council.
Once again, The Bahamas found itself between a rock and a hard place over the question of whether to support Cuba in its bid for a seat on the new Council, or whether to support the United Statesﾒ efforts to keep Cuba out. If you were watching the local news over the past several weeks, you would have seen or heard the highest level American representative in our land express in no uncertain terms the view of his government about what The Bahamas should do.
You would have observed how, at just about every opportunity, the chief American diplomat and his second-in-command uttered their opinions that we would be striking a blow for democracy, rights and freedoms if we were to vote against Cubaﾒs inclusion on the new Human Rights Commission.
At other local levels too the discussion was fairly lively. Some felt that Cuba was a part of the Caribbean region with its own successes at improving the dignity and welfare of its people and that it should be given an opportunity to serve at a higher international level. Others felt that Cuba was a bastion of demon socialism and all the curtailing of individual rights and freedoms which are intrinsic to socialism, and as such it should be forever kept out of international limelight.
Still others felt that as a sovereign and independent nation, The Bahamas should be left alone to make its own decisions about which countries to befriend and which to reject and that it was unseemly for so-called friends to try and direct or influence Bahamasﾒ voting behaviour in the international arena.
None of these discussions was done in any sort of secret manner; matters relating to Cuba have always enjoyed wide public discussion in our environment. In more recent times, discussions surrounding China (and even Taiwan) too have been aired in very public places and at all levels of our society. People feel strongly both for an against relations with these two communist countries and are seldom shy about expressing themselves.
In the few days leading up to the actual vote at the UN, opinions about how The Bahamas should vote were being passed quite freely. One local daily in fact devoted several editorials to the entire question and was strongly of the view that The Bahamas should seriously remember reports of Cubaﾒs harsh treatment of dissenting voices within its borders and reject any bid on its part to serve at a higher level in the international community.
On the other hand, others, including voices from the Cuban embassy here were quick to point out that the United States, in its haste to discredit Cubaﾒs position as contender for a seat on the Council, was ignoring the grim reality of the extreme conditions it maintained at its own Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and the reports which reached international media about its abuse of prisoners of war at the Abu Graib detention facility in the Middle East.
With all of this local discussion and interest in the air and much more available in the international media then, The Bahamasﾒ official delegation went off to the UN meeting and participated in the historic election of the new Council. The world was watching to see which countries would win seats in this new and prestigious world body.
Then our delegation returned home and refused to tell us exactly how they voted. No, not how they voted, but rather how they voted on our behalf. With stony silence from the political end and the usual ducking and dodging from the administrative end, nobody was able or willing to tell us which countries we supported at this most important meeting.
Nobody has yet told us if we supported the good guys or the bad guys when the actual vote was taken. Nobody seems able to tell us where we stand with our friends in the continental north or with those in the Latin American and Caribbean south. Nobody is prepared to give an account of what was done on our behalf.
Is this not incredible? One of the most important UN meetings of the decade, to choose one of its most critical agencies, the one entrusted with promoting and protecting rights and freedoms which are basic to all the worldﾒs people, and nobody who attended the meeting has the courage or even the decency to say how The Bahamas voted?
By: Theresa Moxey Ingraham, from The Bahama Journal
