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12/31/07 - Cuba-L Analysis (Albuquerque) - On Human Rights, Democratic
Centralism and Foreign Policy

By Nelson P. Valdes and Robert Sandels

The Cuban government intends to sign two UN covenants - the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - early in 2008. The
covenants extend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which did not
address the need to create the conditions necessary to achieve the
fundamental rights it enunciated.

In a Dec. 10 news conference announcing the decision, Foreign Minister
Felipe Perez Roque said the reason for signing the 1966 documents had much
to do with the decision of the UN Human Rights Commission earlier this year
ending the permanent mandate to review Cuban's human rights behavior. Cuba
has said for years that it would not bow to pressure from the United States
and international bodies dominated by it.

"Conditions are now ripe," Perez Roque said, "to take new steps
indicative of Cuba's political will to cooperate with the UN and to make its
contribution and experience available to the international community in this
matter."[1]

Roque suggested that Cuban law and practice already comply with the two
covenants. Indeed, Cuba has repeatedly responded to Washington's fixation
on human rights in Cuba narrowly defined in terms of alleged political
prisoners and press and speech rights while ignoring the much broader
concepts embodied in the two covenants.

The two covenants cover such areas as the right of self-determination,
the right to work for fair wages in a safe environment, equal pay for women,
the right to leisure, paid maternity leave, the right to physical and mental
healthcare and various judicial rights such as fair trials, prisoner rights,
and protections against arbitrary arrest and self-incrimination. There are
also several inverse rights that prohibit war propaganda and "any advocacy
of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to
discrimination, hostility or violence."[2]

Four days after the announcement, Fidel Castro addressed a letter to
Randy Alonso, moderator of the TV discussion program Mesa Redonda directing
attention to comments he made in 2001 on the same program concerning his
reasons for rejecting the two covenants. [3]

For those who believe Fidel Castro makes all the decisions in Cuba and
that a political transformation must necessarily set off a power struggle
and a reversal of the revolution, consider the subtlety of Castro's use of
the media to sway opinion.

Fidel's comments on Mesa Redonda in 2001 resulted from a conversation
with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who explained that his
objections to inviting Castro to the Third Americas Summit in Quebec City
had to do with Cuba's human rights record. Chrétien asked why Cuba had not
signed the two UN covenants, and Castro replied that Cuba objected to the
articles on education and labor rights.

The labor provisions, said Castro, were suitable for capitalist
countries that are ruled by business interests and where workers are
manipulated. But Cuban workers are already organized and represented. The
article on labor, he said, "would be used fundamentally for subversive and
destabilizing purposes, to undermine the political power and diminish the
extraordinary strength and influence of our workers, and to erode the heroic
resistance of the only socialist state in the West in the face of the
hegemonic superpower."

The article on education "would open the doors to the privatization of
education," and, as in the past, give rise "to painful differences and
intolerable privileges and injustices, including racial discrimination,"
said Castro.

Castro rejected the prime minister's suggestion that Cuba sign the
covenants and state these objections. "We responded that afterwards there
would be talk of non-compliance with the Covenant, and nobody would know
about or remember the reservations with which it was signed. You cannot play
around with these things!"

Castro ended his 2001 recollections of that conversation with, "History
will say who is right."[4]

US press misses the point

Meanwhile, the announcement was given cursory coverage in the US media.
The New York Times devoted one paragraph to it, part of which was a
description of a confrontation between protestors and government supporters
in Havana on the occasion of Human Rights Day.[5]

The Miami Herald wrote a lengthier report but concentrated on the
confrontation and on criticism by dissidents like Martha Beatríz Roque, who
was interviewed by the Herald from the home of US Interests Section chief
Michael Parmly.[6]

Coming just days after his own foreign minister announced Cuba's
intention to sign without mentioning the longstanding objections to the
labor and education articles, it is obvious that Castro does not agree with
the decision. This in turn suggests that Castro was either not involved in
the discussion or that he was outvoted. "History will decide who is right,"
the title he gives to the 2001 remarks, is a classic rejoinder of the one
who lost an argument. In any case, he apparently stands opposed to an
important policy decision of the government he heads. He, in other words,
accepted the decision. So much for the picture of Fidel as dictator.

By going public, Castro might have believed he could stop the process more
effectively than he could from inside the government. Alternatively, he
might have pitched his argument to members of the Communists Party of Cuba
(PCC) in order to further educate that sector of the population.

Should his public disagreement over the covenants prove persuasive to
the party, one of several scenarios could reverse the decision to sign. The
Foreign Ministry could backtrack, the National Assembly could vote against
ratification, or the Council of State could act against it.

It may be that besides Castro's specific objections to the labor and
education articles, he has a more generic distaste for rights declared by
capitalist countries led by the United States. Why else would he choose to
begin his letter to Alonso by citing an Argentine filmmaker's
"deconstruction" of capitalism's "lies of democracy and human rights"?
After all, the United States is in violation of almost all of the enumerated
rights in the two covenants and could not implement them under the species
of capitalism it now practices.

Lastly, it should be noted that the Cuban political leadership has a
long view of foreign policy matters. The covenants probably will be adopted
by Cuba in mid-2008. If adopted, they will be enforced by 2009. A
very practical result would be the Cuban government inviting United
Nations' human rights observers to the island. Such visits, without a doubt,
would have a profound impact on European Union and Canadian foreign policy
toward Havana. If the United States government, at the time, is dominated by
a Democratic Congress and presidency, then a very important political debate
will ensue on bilateral relations with the island. The potential
prospects of having a political climate to finally end the United States
blockade might be guiding political debate within the island. Or, as Henry
of Navarre said, "Paris vaut bien une messe."


Notes

[1] Granma (Havana), 12/11/07.

[2] International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Right See:
; International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, .

[3] Granma (Havana), 12/14/07.

[4] Granma (Havana), 12/11/07.

[5] The New York Times, 12/11/07.

[6] The Miami Herald, 12/11/07.