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Date Posted: 20:38:22 04/29/03 Tue
Author: SurveyGuy
Author Host/IP: pcp01422563pcs.lndsd201.pa.comcast.net / 68.81.153.209
Subject: Oh, those U.N. jokesters!! Is it time to leave yet?

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/29/153038.shtml
U.S. Denounces Cuba's Re-election to U.N. 'Human Rights' Commission
NewsMax.com Wires and NewsMax.com Tuesday, April 29, 2003

WASHINGTON � The White House deplored Cuba's re-election today to the U.N. Human Rights Commission and likened it to placing the security of a bank in the hands of a mobster.
The appointment to the 53-member body by the United Nations Social and Economic Committee came on the heels of Havana sending more than 70 journalists, librarians and opposition leaders to prison.

"This is a setback for the cause of human rights," spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "Cuba does not deserve a seat on the Human Rights Commission. Cuba deserves to be investigated by the Human Rights Commission.

"We deplore the action. We will speak out against the action," he said.

The commission, chaired this year by prominent rights abuser Libya, includes the United States in its roster of members. The United States, however, had been voted off the commission the previous year.

The United States is a frequent critic of the abuses under Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

"The Human Rights Commission undermines its own credibility at the United Nations when they allow Cuba to get re-elected," Fleischer said. "The Human Rights Commission not only hurts the people of Cuba, but they hurt the very cause on which nations should sign up to serve on the Human Rights Commission."

Fleischer said that Cuba had earlier refused to let the commission's investigators enter the island police state. Its retention of its seat in the U.N. body "raises troubling issues," he noted.

U.S. relations with the United Nations have been under strain in recent months over the globalist body's refusal to enforce its resolutions and back military action against Iraq.

Still 'No Change' on U.S. Position Toward U.N.!

Fleischer said though the action by the Social and Economic Commission was deplorable, it would not affect the overall U.S. position in regard to the United Nations.

"There is no change in our overall position toward the United Nations," he said in answer to a reporter's question. "The United Nations continues to pursue other areas that do good around the world."

Although the U.N. once again gets a pass, U.S. officials are warning Havana that Washington will increase its efforts to end dictatorship, the Washington Times reported today.

The United States will use "new creativity and vigor to hasten the inevitable democratic transition on the island," said Roger Noriega, President Bush's choice for assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "Castro continued to do nothing but oppress, suppress his people, suppress opinion. And we're reviewing all of our policies."

Bush's special envoy Otto Reich said, "No one knows how many people rot in Castro's dungeons." He accused the dictator of mismanaging his economy to the point that Cuba was the "only country that has experienced a decline in caloric intake in the last 40 years."

Castro: U.S. Wants to Invade

Castro claims his abuses are America's fault. He said Friday on state-run Cuban TV that three men who tried to hijack a ferry April 2 to get to Florida were executed to prevent a wave of hijackings that could give Washington a pretext to invade.

The United States and Cuban exiles in Florida have a "warped plot" to create a crisis with Havana that could lead to military action against the island, he said.

"We had to pull the evil out by the roots," Castro said in his nearly four-hour rant Friday.

Copyright 2003 by United Press International.

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