The US Ambassador to The Bahamas, John Rood, yesterday launched a scathing attack on Cuba’s human rights record, highlighting what he believes are continuing serious “abuses.”
Significantly, Mr Rood said the US does not criticise governments for engaging Cuba or disagreeing with the US decision not to have economic or diplomatic relations with the country. This is a direct reference to the links being built between Cuba and The Bahamas.
Part of what Mr Rood has to say centres on the secret ballot vote made on May 9 for countries vying for membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council, which replaced its Commission on Human Rights. Cuba and seven other countries in the region were chosen to represent Latin America and the Caribbean on that Council. Mr Rood said as the UN sought to reform its “discredited” Human Rights Commission with the new Council, the US and other responsible members of the international community worked hard to ensure that only countries that respected the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and strove to uphold its tenets, would be responsible for protecting it.
“In our own hemisphere, only one of the elected members elected fails to meet this standard,” he said.
“According to the watchdog group Freedom House, Cuba is one of the world’s most repressive regimes. A quick look at the Declaration’s goals and Cuba’s record shows why.”
He added, “Religious freedom, as Pope John Paul II reminded the UN when he addressed it in 1979, is the most fundamental of all freedoms. It is a freedom that Bahamians and Americans hold near and dear.
Unfortunately, as the independent US Commission on International Religious Freedom states in its 2005 report: “Religious belief and practice continue to be tightly controlled in Cuba.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell, during his contribution to the House of Assembly last Wednesday, did not reveal how The Bahamas voted, though he said there was no prohibition from releasing the information. Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham criticised the government for its “vote for Cuba” but Mr Mitchell said the former leader was playing political football with the issue as The Bahamas could be friends with both the US and Cuba.
Mr Mitchell pointed out that successive governments never revealed votes on secret ballots. Mr Rood did not involve himself in this political row.
In fact, he said the United States welcomes reasoned debate about how best to improve Cuba’s human rights record. He also said the US does not criticise governments for engaging Cuba or disagreeing with the US decision not to have economic or diplomatic relations with Cuba.
“What should be beyond debate, however, is that a government with Cuba’s record on human rights should not be responsible for enforcing and promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” he said.
“Cuba’s own diplomatic representative here in The Bahamas has publicly made clear, Cuba does not share a commitment to the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration.”
But the representative, Cuban Ambassador to The Bahamas, Felix Wilson-Hernandez has stated on numerous occasions that Cuba respects human rights.
Mr. Hernandez said the US was not in a position to dictate human rights standards to the rest of the world as it has been frequently criticised itself for human rights abuses at its Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre in Cuba and at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.
Amnesty International condemned the US in 2004 after American military personnel were seen on television stations around the world abusing naked Iraqi prisoners.
By: MINDELL SMALL, The Nassau Guardian
