Prison Diary LXV Cuba in the Human Rights Council - How to Demand What has Not Yet Been Met

Prison Diary LXV: Cuba in the Human Rights Council: How to Demand What
has Not Yet Been Met / Angel Santiesteban
Posted on November 15, 2013

Shooting themselves in the foot

That Cuba, China and Russia have been elected to the Human Rights
Council of the UN might seem like a joke if it were not such a serious
issue for the world and especially for this international body.

For those of us who directly suffer violations of our rights it would be
logical if it awakened outrage in us, but giving a vote of confidence
and analyzing the possible strategy, above all with Cuba which has not
signed the treaties, is like a forced invitation to join the inescapable
democratization of the 21st century.

Perhaps one can use that saying, "God take care of my friends, as for my
enemies I will take charge of them and keep them close," because now
Cuba will be more in the public eye, and their actions more visible, as
in "violations of individual rights," in which the regime is competing
for one of the top spots in the world.

We are struck by the way Cuba's national media have spread the news:
they have done so in a brief and tragic mode, and not with the boasting
that usually accompanies their Pyrrhic victories.

Is it likely that they fear how Cubans will feel about rights and demand
their own rights? So, the less they know the better? We assume that at
this point that the mandatory question that Raul Castro will be asking
himself is how does he get away with not complying. How could he ask for
respect and collaboration if he has been a champion for such violations
through the decades? What example could he give and demand of those
countries who do not practise these things?

To comply with the UN would be to stop being a dictatorship, and the
Castro brothers are still not convinced that they can do without
totalitarian power, which they like and have exercised for over half a
century.

Hopefully the choice was a wise, diplomatic, cunning one by the UN, and
will enjoin Cuba to sign the Covenants, postponed for more than five
years, since that position morally obliges them to respect them from
now, given that they will be the guardians of their respect. At least
I'll believe it after I see it.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Lawton prison settlement. November 2013.

Translated by: Shane J. Cassidy

14 November 2013

Source: "Prison Diary LXV: Cuba in the Human Rights Council: How to
Demand What has Not Yet Been Met / Angel Santiesteban | Translating
Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/prison-diary-lxv-cuba-in-the-human-rights-council-how-to-demand-what-has-not-yet-been-met-angel-santiesteban/