Protests grow at US provocation against Cuba at Geneva
Campaign News | Wednesday, 2 March 2005
Protests in France, Mexico and Colombia against US manouevres at Human Rights Commission
Paris, Mar 1 (Prensa Latina) Organizations and friends of Cuba in France denounced Tuesday manoeuvers against the Caribbean island in the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), and asked France and the rest of Europe not to join the US policy against Cuba.
Leaders of these institutions and personalities wrote a document in which they denounced that the US wants to reinforce the blockade to Cuba, instead of analyzing the situation of human rights in the island, as they pretend.
Under the title "France and Europe should not be associated to the anti-Cuban manoeuvers in UN," the document warned that the enemies of Cuba want to increase the hard situation of the people.
The text makes a summary of the hostile policy of the US governments towards Cuba since 1959, the existence of the blockade for almost 50 years, and how it has been reinforced since 1990, when the Socialist field stumbled down and fell, and it exemplified this with the application of the Torricelli and Helms-Burton Acts, and the activities of Cuban counter-revolutionary groups supported by US, in the interior of Cuba, to unstabilize the country.
Denouncers urged the French government and European authorities for not to support the anti-Cuban resolution US will present in the UNHRC this year.
The document, having been circulated among political parties, friendship groups, institutions and intellectual and cultural personalities of France, has been signed by a lot of people.
Among them there are Sthepan Gatignon, Mayor of Sevran and General Supervisor of Seine Saint-Denis, Francois Asuisi, Mayor and deputy of Trembay in France, Deputy Jean Claude Leford, Patricio Arena, leader of the Chilean Communist Party in France, and Miguel Iriarte, general secretary of the France-Cuba Association in Ivry sur Seine.
MOTERREY, MEXICO (PL)-Jorge Bolaños, the Cuban ambassador in México, has condemned the rabid persistence of the US government, which is trying to force the imposition of an anti-Cuban resolution in the UN Human Rights Commission.
This attitude, he said, deeply hurts the Commission’s credibility; it distorts it, perverts it and conditions it to the point of transforming it into a court of inquisition against countries of the South or any other country that dares to defy its ambitions to rule the world.
Bolaños spoke at the inauguration of the 10th Cuba Solidarity Conference, which took place with 639 delegates during two working days in this city, located about 1,000 km north of Mexico City.
He also condemned the fact that Washington is currently handing out large sums of money to finance its stratagem (in Geneva, where that UN body meets), which “whets the appetites of both its internal and external mercenaries and lackeys.”
Therefore, he asserted, the farce that the United States hopes to impose there once again lacks - as on previous occasions - any legitimacy whatsoever, and makes a mockery of truth, justice and the consciousness of those who are genuinely committed to the defense of human rights.
In addition, he condemned the hypocritical, two-faced stance taken by those rich countries that vote with the U.S. in Geneva, but oppose the convening of a special debate on the assassination by Israeli troops of Ahmed Bassin, the Palestinian spiritual leader.
Cuba, he emphasized, confirms the militancy of its struggle together with all who are ready to firmly defend truth and justice, and confront fiction and shamelessness.
The ambassador added that this is possible because it concerns a country that does not believe in threats or blackmail, and because human rights violations do not exist on its territory.
He reiterated that in Cuba, there has never been a case of disappearance by force, torture or extrajudicial execution; practices that the US government promoted on a massive scale in Latin America under its military dictatorships.
The ambassador reaffirmed that the Cuban Revolution will never lower its flag of dignity, and that, moreover, it will know how to defend to its last breath the generous friendship and solidarity of the Mexican people.
MEXICAN GOVERNMENT URGED TO NOT BOW TO US PRESSURES
THE final declaration by the Cuba Solidarity Conference, with more than 800 participants, demanded that the Mexican government refuses to bow to US pressures at the UN Human Rights Commission.
The document calls for the end of the disastrous economic and trade blockade maintained by Washington for more than 40 years.
It also urges that a possible military invasion against Cuba be prevented at all costs, and calls for a mobilization to rescue from US dungeons the five Cuban patriots who were imprisoned for defending their homeland, and who - it emphasizes - are suffering the violation of their civil and human rights.
Likewise, it advocates unceasing struggle against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and in its stead, to foster and spread the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (BAA), which is promoted by Cuba and Venezuela.
The document also expresses acknowledgement of the Cuban people’s efforts, at the cost of great sacrifice, to keep the flame of hope alive, as well as their proven spirit of solidarity with other countries in the world.
In evaluating the outcome of the conference, the document notes that ever since 1959, Monterrey has been a city where sympathy with the Cuban Revolution has been manifest, and that today, with this great conference, “a place that was recently considered an impregnable bastion of Mexican reaction has been taken away from the enemy.”
The declaration also expresses willingness to promote Mexican participation in the upcoming World Festival of Students and Youth, to be held in August in Venezuela.
The Mexican Cuba Solidarity Movement will continue to be broad, representative and unified, because the sole objective that unifies us is the defense of the Cuban Revolution, the document concludes.
Bogota, Mar 1. (Prensa Latina) Colombian social and solidarity organizations have denounced that the United States is plotting to provoke the Cuban government when the UN Human Rights Commission convenes in Geneva, Switzerland, this month.
A statement spread on Colombian web sites has warned that Washington is pressuring governments of many countries to condemn Cuba during the 61st session period of the UN Human Rights Commission (HRC), to be held in that Swiss city from March 14 through 22.
Thus, they are calling on all Colombians to support Cuba and urge Alvaro Uribe?s government to refrain from following or join any ploy against the Caribbean island as the White House desires.
It is not a secret for the world that the best known human rights violations are promoted, financed and carried out by the US government, the document states.
The statement adds that US pressures have never been so clearly visible as they are now under President George W. Bush?s government, which should be denounced as the absolute champion of human rights violations, with all its lies and bloodthirsty invasions.
Washington has ignored -it continues- the United Nations and it is threatening the world to follow its failed neoliberal expansionist policy, which violates all human rights and the peoples? sovereignty.
The text highlights that in spite of the severe US blockade; Cuba keeps carrying out with dignity its great humanist work and is sharing it with other nations of the world.
Cubans enjoy -the document asserts- a true pluralistic democracy, which the United States and its followers are unable to show.
It also highlights that integral education in the Caribbean island is oriented to form true human beings, who are well trained and able to show solidarity and bring health care and education to the most remote places in the world.
The declaration questions if the US democracy, riddled with frauds, where millions of dollars circulate to only satisfy personal interests, is superior to the Cuban people?s participation democracy.
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