Human rights still under siege

Posted on Sun, Oct. 01, 2006

CUBA
Human rights still under siege
OUR OPINION: U.N. OBSERVER'S REPORT CONDEMNS GOVERNMENT PRACTICES

The Cuban government is nothing if not consistent. Faced once again with
a report in the U.N. Human Rights Council condemning the way Cuba treats
its citizens, the government responded by denouncing Christine Chanet,
the French lawyer who prepared the report. This is a pathetic but
typical response by a regime that has once again had its dirty laundry
aired before the human-rights community.

The 13-page report prepared by Ms. Chanet and presented for the first
time to the Human Rights Council in Geneva last week describes a host of
violations: Arbitrary arrests; the suppression of free speech and free
association; restricting common liberties, such as the freedom to travel.

None of this will come as news to anyone familiar with life in Cuba, but
it is important for reports such as this to be presented to
international organizations that command attention. It robs Cuba of any
pretense to claim good standing in the community of nations that respect
the basic rights of their own citizens.

Just as important, it undermines the notion that the people of Cuba
really do support their government and have any allegiance to Fidel
Castro. The practices described in the report can have only one purpose,
and that is to maintain the citizenry in a state of perpetual fear, the
fundamental objective of any police state.

It is not likely that the government will take this report seriously.
Not as long as Fidel Castro is still around, anyway. But if a
post-Castro government should ever want to signal that it is interested
in changing direction, it could implement at least some of the
recommendations offered by Ms. Chanet.

The first and most important of these is to halt the prosecution of
citizens who are exercising rights guaranteed under the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. And, while it's at it, the government
should release detained persons who, in the words of the report, ''have
not committed acts of violence against individuals and property.'' Among
them are the 60 jailed individuals named in the report who were arrested
in March-April of 2003 in the crackdown on human rights.

Cuba's human-rights record has been the target of condemnation for
decades, and the record includes previous reports by official U.N.
observers. ''The situation doesn't seem today to be anything that could
be described as improved, and I'm putting it mildly,'' Ms. Chanet said
last week.

This may discourage those who would like to believe that pressure from
the world community will oblige the government to soften its grip on the
people of Cuba. But the report and others like it provide comfort to the
courageous dissidents inside Cuba. They need to know that they are not
alone in condemning the injustice and lack of freedom that prevail in
Fidel Castro's Cuba.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/editorial/15641039.htm