The Case of Cuba: “Human Rights” as a Club

This document was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Office of the Commissioner, based in Geneva, Switzerland in the name of Cuba solidarity organizations in the New York-New Jersey area of the United States. These are the political views and analysis of the author.

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The first members of a team of 165 Cuban doctors and health workers unload boxes of medicines and medical material from a plane upon their arrival at Freetown’s airport to help the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone, on October 2, 2014.  Florian Plaucheur—AFP/Getty Image

The purpose of this submission is not to draw up a list contrasting the false propaganda narrative on Cuba over human rights and democratic freedom, with the actual facts and reality of Cuba’s legal and criminal justice systems; its prisons; its media; the rights of free speech, assembly, and the organization of labor; Cuba’s actual electoral system and voting procedures; and the truth regarding mass political participation in decision-making on the island.  The facts on these realities would no doubt come as a surprise to those only exposed to the propaganda and half-truths of the US government and “Western” big-business commercial media.

With this submission I am rather more interested in the political framework that “human rights” becomes a cover and a false club for Washington’s anti-Cuba policies.

While it is certainly necessary to formulate principles and guidelines on human…

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