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Odds and ends
- From Politico.com, a subcommittee chairman comes out on the losing end of a squabble over legislation to end the Cuba travel ban.
- The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Cuba issues her report, notes arrests in 2003 and since, is concerned about prison conditions, notes Cuban performance in health and education. Cuban officials granted her no access as she prepared her report. The Cuban representative at the human rights council fingers the CIA.
- The State Department issued its report on human trafficking worldwide, with judgments on each country’s performance. Cuba is placed in the bottom tier.
2 comments:
You forgot the most important part of the Human Rights Council story. The rights envoy (Chanet) recommended ending the yearly Cuba charade. In addition the Council seems poised to reject the current system that allows powerful countries to cherry-pick small countries for review, while remaining immune from any review of themselves. 25 member countries spoke in favor of Cuba and the type of reforms which would make all countries subject to human rights review. Cuba has said it would cooperate with such a regime.
The trafficking report is a doozy. Cuba is the only county in the (worst) Tier 3 who is not labeled as a source or destination for human trafficking. It is internal "trafficking" (from where to where one might wonder?) ie. prostitution that is the only mentioned problem. This does not even come close to meeting the basic definition of trafficking used in the report. The substantial efforts the Cuban government takes to stop the (once larger) problem are ignored. Again the US shows it is incapable of treating countries fairly and Cuba bears the brunt.
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