Battle Lines on the Human Rights Front

"Having Cuba serve again on the Human Rights Commission is like putting Al Capone in charge of bank security." That was White House spokesman Ari Fleischer's reaction to Cuba's recent reelection to the world's foremost human rights forum. The vote — by the U.N. Economic and Social Council — came just weeks after the Castro government rounded up nearly 80 political dissidents, independent journalists and others, and also executed three men who tried to hijack a ferry to the U.S.

Critics of Cuba, says José Antonio Fernández, of the country's U.N. delegation in Geneva, will have "to endure our discourse for three more years." Cuba has been a member of the Geneva-based commission since 1989. As a major player among nonaligned countries, it has essentially been guaranteed a regional-representative seat by its Latin American neighbors. Criticism has increased, however, given the spotlight generated by the latest crackdown on dissent — Cuba's worst in years.

Along with the U.S., Human Rights Watch and others, critics also now include some longtime Friends of Fidel. Italy and Canada sent protest messages, Sweden warned of potential harm to Havana's relations with the European Union and a host of prominent left-wing writers once close to Castro expressed dismay and disappointment. The Portuguese Nobel laureate José Sarmago said Cuba had "cheated my dreams," while Carlos Fuentes wrote to a Mexico City newspaper: "As a Mexican, I wish for my country neither the dictates of Washington on foreign policy nor the Cuban example of a suffocating dictatorship."

"What happened in the last month and a half is really very dramatic," says one European observer. "That the ex-dictatorships of Latin America would give Cuba a free ride for another three years is very disappointing." (Similarly, Russia remains on the rights commission thanks to a "free ticket" from the East European regional group.) "When they have an opportunity to act in a principled way and not let these countries on the commission, they don't take it."

Despite the passion that Cuba arouses in Washington — and its current status as a lightning rod on rights — it is not alone in provoking observers within governments and NGOs to feel it should be under the scrutiny of the Commission on Human Rights, rather than sitting on the panel. Along with Russia — which has come in for severe criticism over Chechnya — the other 22 countries elected to the 53-nation body for 2004 include Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They take their places alongside China, Sudan, Zimbabwe and others singled out by Human Rights Watch as members of an "abusers club" — governments hostile to human rights that have consolidated their positions and blocked key initiatives.

Among the greatest disappointments for commission-watchers: failure of resolutions on the human-rights situations in Chechnya, Sudan and Zimbabwe; discontinuation of resolutions regarding countries of the former Yugoslavia; lack of resolutions on China, Iran and Nepal; and weak resolutions on Iraq. "The commission appears to be in really serious decline," says Joanna Weschler, H.R.W.'s representative at the U.N. "Governments this year were even less outspoken in criticizing the worst human rights violators worldwide."

Cuba — like Egypt, Zimbabwe and others — also has drawn fire for refusing to accept visits by U.N. human rights monitors. "The human-rights commission conducts much of its work through independent experts," notes Ian Seiderman, a legal adviser with the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, which protects and promotes human rights through the rule of international law. "At the very least, the criterion for membership should be cooperation with these experts." They include working groups on disappearances and arbitrary detention, torture and execution, as well as special rapporteurs for a range of countries.