Crackdown on dissidents tipped balance

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

GENEVA -- By the slimmest of margins, the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights approved a Czech-Polish resolution Friday that returns Cuba to
the commission's official list of significant violators.

The 21-20 vote, with 12 abstentions, left Cuba's Deputy Foreign Minister
Maria de Los Angeles Florez muttering, ``It happens,'' when a friendly
diplomat patted her shoulder after the tally was announced.

Although the approval of the resolution is unlikely to alter the Cuban
government's behavior in the realm of human rights issues, the action carries
heavy symbolic weight, returning Havana to the U.N. body's unofficial list of
major violators and mandating a review at next year's assembly.

A crucial factor in the outcome appeared to be Cuba's recent crackdown on
dissidents, as well as the Cuban government's style of lobbying in the
assembly, where one Latin American envoy described Carlos Amat, Cuba's
ambassador to U.N. agencies in Geneva, as ``undiplomatic.''

``People gave Cuba a break last year and now they go around putting more
dissidents in jail,'' the diplomat said.

``We know what communism does, and we don't believe anyone else should
suffer it,'' said a Czech diplomat. Czech President Vaclav Havel and former
Polish President Lech Walesa were once dissidents jailed by their regimes.

The commission's action represents a return to the usual pattern of
condemnation against Cuba. U.S.-sponsored resolutions against Cuba were
approved from 1991 to 1997, but last year's version was rejected in a surprise
16-19 vote with 18 abstentions.

Washington took a back seat this year, letting the Czech Republic and Poland
-- democracies that were once Communist satellites of the Soviet Union --
take the lead on the Cuba debate while U.S. diplomats lobbied strongly in the
background.

The latest resolution was worded far more softly than previous U.S. versions,
merely urging Cuba to release political prisoners and noting abuses such as a
recent law on dissent and the sentencing of four peaceful dissidents to prison.
Nevertheless, U.S. officials were pleased.

``Two countries of dissidents speaking up for dissidents sent the right signal,''
said Harold Koh, assistant secretary of state for human rights. ``This sends a
message . . . that human rights in Cuba have to be respected.''

Amat, leader of the Cuban delegation, called it ``a moral victory to lose by one
vote in the face of the blackmail and pressures known to have been applied
against countries'' by U.S. diplomats.

Shifting votes

Chile, Ecuador and Uruguay switched from abstentions in 1998 to votes
against Havana this year, with one Chilean diplomat saying that human rights
conditions in Cuba had ``moved backward'' since Havana's brief opening in
the wake of a visit by Pope John Paul II last year.

Mexico, Peru and Venezuela switched from abstentions in 1998 to pro-Cuba
votes this year, however, with a Mexican envoy telling the commission on
Friday that the resolution unfairly singled out Cuba for criticism and lacked
balance because it failed to condemn the U.S. embargo of the island.

El Salvador switched from a vote against Cuba in 1998 to abstention this year
amid rumblings that Havana offered it clemency for two Salvadorans
sentenced to death in Cuba on terrorism charges in exchange for the vote.
Salvadoran diplomats declined comment on the reports.

Canada, Japan, South Korea and all European nations voted against Cuba,
while Russia again backed Havana. African and Asian nations again voted for
Cuba or abstained, although Morocco switched from abstention to a vote for
the Czech-Polish resolution.

The Czech-Polish resolution broke with past U.S. resolutions in not calling for
the appointment of an official to investigate Cuban violations of human rights,
but it urged Cuba to permit visits by all commission representatives to look
into broad categories of human rights abuses across international boundaries.

Cuba has not allowed international Red Cross representatives to visit its
prisons for the past several years, despite dissident reports of severe food and
medicine shortages and occasional physical abuse.

Approval of the resolution was hailed by groups and individuals critical of the
Cuban government's human rights record:

   In Miami, the Cuban American National Foundation hailed the vote as ``an
important milestone in the struggle for Cuba's liberty.'' It said: ``Justice has
prevailed and, once again, the aged despot has been placed squarely on the
defensive where he stood before the Holy Father's visit as the international
pariah that he is.''

   Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., credited the Czech Republic's Havel and
Poland's Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek ``for their courageous stands and
leadership on this critical issue. Each and every government that stood today in
Geneva with the Cuban people's right to live in freedom and dignity has earned
the gratitude of freedom-loving people everywhere,'' he said.

   Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said: ``When [Cuban President Fidel] Castro
was left off the list of human rights abusers in 1998, his response was to launch
one of the most repressive crackdowns in his 40-year reign of terror. I am
pleased that the commission once again agrees that Castro's actions deserve
the strongest possible condemnation.''