"History will tell who is right"

Days after Cuba’s government announced that it would sign UN human rights conventions, Fidel Castro decided to remind the world why he declined to sign those accords seven years ago.

Granma published a note from Castro to Randy Alonso, moderator of the Mesa Redonda television program. Castro requests that Randy broadcast a statement he made in 2001 in which Castro explained why Cuba would not sign the convention on economic, social, and cultural rights, because of reservations about two provisions.

The section on labor union rights would provide “a pretext for imperialism to try to divide and fragment workers, create artificial unions, and reduce their political and social power and influence,” Castro said in 2001. A section on education would “open the doors to the privatization of teaching, which in the past allowed painful differences and irritating privileges and injustices, including racial discrimination.” (AFP Spanish story here.)

On Monday, Cuba nonetheless announced that it would sign this and another UN convention on civil and political rights.

Castro asked that the text of his 2001 statement be titled, “History will tell who is right.”

Maybe history will also tell us who is in charge.