U.N. food envoy praises Cuba, sees need for reform

U.N. food envoy praises Cuba, sees need for reform
By Anthony Boadle Tue Nov 6, 7:34 PM ET

HAVANA (Reuters) - The United Nations envoy on the right to food praised
Cuba on Tuesday for feeding its people adequately but said he saw the
need for agricultural reforms to reduce the country's dependence on food
imports.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Jean Ziegler said communist-run Cuba had the
best record among developing countries in ensuring no one went hungry,
despite U.S. trade sanctions and economic crisis endured since the
collapse of the Soviet Union.

"We cannot say that the right to food is totally respected in Cuba, but
we have not seen a single malnourished person," he said at a news
conference at the end of a 10-day visit.

Ziegler said Cuba was engrossed in a national debate opened by acting
President Raul Castro on how to improve agricultural output to cut
imports in the face of rising world food prices.

He said a reform plan could be adopted in months that would most likely
increase the scope of private cooperatives at the expense of state farms
to raise productivity.

"We heard the people want free markets for more products other than
vegetables," he said.

The visit by Ziegler, a Swiss sociologist, was the first by a U.N.
rights rapporteur to Cuba in almost a decade. He was invited by Havana
after the new U.N. Human Rights Council, of which Cuba is a member,
decided in June to stop the scrutiny of human rights abuses in Cuba.

The Cuban government, led by Raul Castro since his brother Fidel Castro
fell ill last year, saw Ziegler's visit as turning the page on 16 years
of criticism by the former U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Ziegler said his visit was a sign that Cuba was willing to cooperate on
human rights with the new U.N. body and would pave the way for visits by
other rapporteurs.

The Geneva-based council appoints outside experts as independent
rapporteurs who are assigned countries or subjects and given wide
latitude in their reports.

Ziegler visited two prisons near Havana but gave no details of what he
saw. He said his brief was to report on how the inmates were fed and
watered.

Cuban does not allow the International Red Cross to visit its jails,
where human rights groups say some 250 political prisoners live in
"subhuman" conditions that include rotten food and undrinkable water.

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