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U.S. makes anti-Cuban resolution official
BY ORLANDO ORAMAS LEON—PL special
correspondent—
GENEVA—The United States today
made it official that its purpose is to charge Cuba
in the UN Human Rights Commission, which Havana is
denouncing as a repeated political and two-faced
maneuver.
The US delegation to the
commission, which includes two assistant secretaries
of state and an assistant secretary of defense, has
registered its anti-Cuban resolution, with the
European Union as its main cosponsor, while other
cosponsoring governments include those of Israel,
Australia, Canada, Japan and various Eastern
European governments.
Although Prensa Latina has
learned of pressures brought to bear on some of the
African delegations, until now none of them has
joined Washington’s proposal, which did win the
backing of the governments of El Salvador and
Nicaragua.
But neither San Salvador nor
Managua is part of the HRC, and thus, neither has
the right to vote.
According to the list,
Washington’s proposal includes a further 12
cosponsoring governments out of the total of 53
member countries on the commission.
The vote is set for next Thursday
or Friday. Until then, experts here say, US
diplomats in Geneva will be increasing their
maneuvering.
The same sources affirm that most
of that maneuvering is being decided in Washington,
with “phone calls, offers and threats to third
countries” that have not as yet declared themselves
one way or another on the resolution.
According to the Cuban
government, the United States is not interested in
the real situation of human rights in the small,
neighboring country, against which it has maintained
a strict blockade for more than 45 years.
Havana has qualified the White House maneuvering
towards a resolution here as a “ridiculous and
torturous ritual,” which last year was approved by
just one vote.
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