Can Cuba’s Human Rights Legacy Be Recovered?

We have memory.

Dec. 1945. Ex-PM Winston Churchill invited to lunch at the Cuban Embassy in the UK.

Human rights are an intrinsic part of Cuban history that the current dictatorship has spent decades systematically trying to erase, denigrate, and deny, but every day Cubans for decades have stood up for the defense of human rights and dignity at great cost to themselves.There are over 1,000 political prisoners today in Cuba, more than in the rest of Latin America combined for demanding the restoration of human rights and democracy.

One of the great lies of the Castro regime, and there are many, is the claim that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains rights that are alien to Cubans. 

Fidel Castro in a 1986 interview claimed that "[y]our political concepts of liberty, equality, justice are very different from ours. You try to measure a country like Cuba with European ideas. And we do not resign ourselves to or accept being measured by those standards." 

However the now dead Cuban dictator omitted that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was an initiative led by Latin Americans, and Cubans in particular. Furthermore that language placed in the Declaration was taken from the 1940 Cuban Constitution. 

Beginning in 1945 Cuba took part in lobbying for and participating in the drafting of the declaration and submitted nine proposals of which five made it into the final document.  

Cuban diplomats invited Winston Churchill to lunch at the Cuban Embassy in London in December of 1945 and proposed the creation of a human rights commission for the United Nations.  

Cuban Ambassador Willy De Blanc hosted the former British Prime Minister with other Cuban diplomats (including delegates to the U.N. Preparatory Commission Dr. Guy Pérez-Cisneros y Bonnel and Cuban jurist Dr. Ernesto Dihigo y López Trigo) where they requested his assistance in the creation of a human rights commission for the United Nations.

Churchill recommended that the Cubans lobby Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, and they followed his advice. Eventually the former First Lady was selected as chairwoman to the Human Rights Commission.

The first meetings of the General Assembly and the Security Council took place in London on January 10, 1946. On December 10, 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was voted on, and a Cuban diplomat played a high profile role that day.

On December 10, 2017 in the Miami Herald's letters to the editor section, Pablo Pérez-Cisneros Barreto, the son of Guy Pérez-Cisneros y Bonnel, wrote of his family's and Cuba's legacy in drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    My late father believed that the declaration is the fruit of the great efforts of our civilization and human progress, a unique moment in which humanity came of age in its civic education; that it is also a source of inspiration for the formation of today’s citizens, and not cause for divisions among them. [...] Cuba had the distinction of being the country that proposed the finished declaration be put up for its final UN vote on Dec. 10, 1948. Hard to believe now but Cuba was once a leader when it came to human rights. And it is important to note that nine initiatives proposed in 1945’s Cuba became part of the final declaration, and that Cuba was the country that entrusted the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in San Francisco to prepare the declaration as early as 1946. The third preamble of the declaration is a copy of one of the articles of the famed 1940 Cuban Constitution, and Cuba had the initiative to include in the declaration the right to honor one’s human rights and reputation, as well as protect citizens against arbitrary government interference in their private lives.  Cuba presented the first amendment to the draft declaration which was accepted, adding the right of citizens of any member country to follow the vocation they choose. Cuba presented a second amendment which was also accepted — the right of every worker to receive an equitable and satisfactory payment for their work.

 Last month Cuba underwent a universal periodic review of its human rights record at the UN Human Rights Council. On the eve of this examination, a UN side event was held with witnesses testifying on the human rights violations committed by Castroism over the past five years.

Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, November 28, 2023

Can Cuba’s Democratic Legacy Be Recovered? 

By John Suarez  

Communist Cuba underwent its fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on November 15, 2023, at the UN Human Rights Council, a process Havana repeatedly subverted since 2009 by using front groups to drown out critical human rights reports by established human rights organizations.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez began the UPR session attacking Israel, went on to blame the Cuban dictatorship’s shortcomings on U.S. sanctions, and turned the review into a politicized circus.

Over 20 years, I’ve witnessed Cuban diplomats undermine international human rights standards, first at the United Nations Human Rights Commission and later at the UN Human Rights Council, making a mockery of human rights.

• On April 15, 2004 when the UN Human Rights Commission decided by a single vote to censure Cuba for its human rights record, a Cuban human rights defender attending the session, Frank Calzon, was physically attacked by a Cuban diplomat. 
• On March 28, 2008 the Castro regime’s delegation, together with the Organization of Islamic Congress, successfully passed resolutions that turned the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression into an investigator policing “abuses” of freedom of expression. 
  
• On Feb. 2, 2009 during the Universal Periodic Review of China, Cuban Ambassador, Juan Antonio Fernandez Palacios, recommended that China repress human rights defenders with more firmness.
  
• On March 17, 2014 at the UN Human Rights Council, Cuban diplomats defended the North Korean regime’s human rights record. 
  
• On Sept. 21, 2018 Cuban Ambassador to the UN, Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, during the Universal Periodic Review on Cuba at the UN Human Rights Council stated that “our country will not accept monitors. Amnesty International will not enter Cuba and we do not need their advice.” Less than a month later, Cuban diplomats led an “act of repudiation“ at the UN shutting down a discussion on political prisoners in Cuba.
• On July 1, 2020 the Cuban dictatorship introduced a  resolution at the UN Human Rights Council endorsing the death of a free Hong Kong and praising China for passing the Hong Kong National Security Law.  

What the diplomats of Cuba’s communist dictatorship do in Geneva is horrible, but it pales compared to what they do to Cubans on the island.

Human rights defenders Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero were killed on July 22, 2012. On June 12, 2023, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirmed that the two Cuban pro-democracy leaders were assassinated by Castro regime operatives.

On July 11, 2021 when Cubans across the island protested in huge numbers called for freedom, and an end to dictatorship. Raul Castro’s hand picked president, Miguel Díaz-Canel went on national television and gave the “order of combat.” Regime agents opened fire on unarmed Cubans, the number killed remains unknown due to regime repression, and lack of transparency, but the video of 36 year old singer Diubis Laurencio Tejeda shot in the back by police, and dying in his friends’ arms is devastating.

Artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez are imprisoned in Cuba today for authoring a song about “homeland and life.” The dictatorship has severely restricted artistic freedoms, passed laws outlawing criticism of the regime on the internet, and passed an even more draconian penal code that expands the death penalty.

Human rights defenders Felix Navarro and his daughter Sayli Navarro, who sought to ascertain the plight of detained Cuban protesters, were themselves arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. There are over 1,000 prisoners of conscience in Cuba. 

It was not always this way. 

A democratic Cuba helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 75 years ago. Carlos Prío Socarrás, Cuba’s last democratic president, was elected in free and fair elections and took office on October 10, 1948. President Prío valued human rights, as seen by the activities of his diplomats during the United Nations’ founding.

Cuba, Panama, and Chile were the first three countries to submit full drafts of human rights charters. Latin American delegations, especially Mexico, Cuba, and Chile inserted language about the right to justice into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in what would become Article 8. 

Cuban delegate Guy Pérez-Cisneros addressed the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948 proposing to vote for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Cuban Ambassador celebrated that it condemned racism and sexism, and addressed the importance of the rule of law: 

“My delegation had the honor of inspiring the final text, which finds it essential that the rights of man be protected by the rule of law, so that man will not be compelled to exercise the extreme recourse of rebellion against tyranny and oppression.” 

Fulgencio Batista overthrew this democratic Cuba on March 10, 1952, Guy Pérez-Cisneros died of a stroke in 1953, and hopes for democratic restoration were dashed by the Castro brothers in 1959 when they imposed a communist dictatorship.

This shared democratic Cuban heritage that in 1948 made world history must be restored, and Cuban communism dumped on the garbage heap of history.

John Suarez is Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba.

https://victimsofcommunism.org/can-cubas-democratic-legacy-be-recovered/

Cuba's human rights legacy: Recovering a lost history

Human rights and democracy are intrinsic parts of Cuban heritage.

Seventy one years ago a democratic Cuba played key roles in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the establishment of the UN Human Rights Commission. Cuba's last democratic president, Carlos Prio Socarras, was elected by Cubans in free and fair elections on July 1, 1948 and assumed office on October 10, 1948. He was a democrat who respected civil liberties and presided over years of prosperity and freedom for Cubans.

President Prio belonged to the Autentico Party and was succeeding Ramon Grau San Martin, another member of the same political party, in the Cuban presidency who had completed his four year term. Both men respected human rights, and this was reflected by the actions taken by their diplomats at the founding of the United Nations.

Beginning in 1945 Cuba took part in lobbying for and participating in the drafting of the declaration and submitted nine proposals of which five made it into the final document. The first meetings of the General Assembly and the Security Council took place in London starting on January 10, 1946.

Diplomats Guy Pérez-Cisneros and Ernesto Dihigo

Cuban Ambassador Willy De Blanc in December of 1945 invited former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to lunch at the Cuban Embassy in London with other Cuban diplomats (including delegates to the U.N. Preparatory Commission Dr. Guy Pérez-Cisneros y Bonnel and Cuban jurist Dr. Ernesto Dihigo y López Trigo) where they requested his assistance in the creation of a human rights commission for the United Nations. Churchill recommended that the Cubans lobby Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, and they followed his advice. Eventually the former First Lady was selected as chairwoman to the Human Rights Commission.

Cuba, Panama, and Chile were the first three countries to submit full drafts of human rights charters to the Commission. The Cuban draft contained references to rights to education, food, and health care, and other social security. Latin American delegations, especially Mexico, Cuba, and Chile inserted language about the right to justice into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in what would become Article 8.  

Cuban delegate Guy Pérez-Cisneros in his speech on December 10, 1948 proposing to vote on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights before the third General Assembly of the United Nations in addition to highlighting the importance of the Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and how it inspired the Third Committee’s work on this document also addressed the importance of the rule of law:

My delegation had the honor of inspiring the final text, which finds it essential that the rights of man be protected by the rule of law, so that man will not be compelled to exercise the extreme recourse of rebellion against tyranny and oppression.

The Cuban delegate also celebrated that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights condemned racism and sexism.

"My country and my people are highly satisfied to see that the odious racial discrimination and the unfair differences between men and women have been condemned forever."

This democratic Cuba was overthrown on March 10, 1952 by a military coup led by Fulgencio Batista and hopes of a democratic restoration were dashed by the rise to power of the Castro brothers on January 1, 1959 who established a six decade long dictatorship.

Guy Pérez-Cisneros died suddenly in 1953 trying to establish a Christian Democrat Party in Cuba in the early years of the Batista regime.

Ernesto Dihigo, like Pérez-Cisneros, left the diplomatic corps following the 1952 coup, but returned in 1959 as Cuba’s Ambassador to the United States in January of 1959 but retired in 1960. No longer a diplomat or a college professor, he dedicated the next forty years of his life to private study focused on philology. He left Cuba, with his wife Caridad Larrondo in 1989 and died in Miami in 1991. 

President Carlos Prio Socarras

Cuba's last democratic president, Carlos Prio Socarras, returned to Cuba in 1959 hoping there would be a democratic restoration. Two years later, in 1961, he was back in exile plotting the overthrow of the Castro regime. Regretting that he had supported Castro’s overthrow of Fulgencio Batista, and apparently suffering economic reversals he committed suicide on April 5, 1977.


This Cuban tradition of defending human rights and democracy did not end with the death of Carlos Prio, but it was now maintained in resistance to the Castro dictatorship. On January 28, 1976 Dr. Ricardo Bofill, a former philosophy tutor at the University of Havana, together with Martha Frayde at her home in Havana founded the Cuban Committee for Human Rights. Prior to the Revolution Martha had been a licensed gynecologist who had studied abroad. She was active in the Orthodox Party and joined the underground resistance during the Batista dictatorship.

Human rights pioneer: Martha Frayde

During the early years of the Castro regime Martha Frayde was given a diplomatic posting. However, when she saw that the Castro regime was heading in a totalitarian direction, she resigned the post in 1965, and wanted to leave Cuba, but the dictatorship did not permit it. In 1976 she was accused of “counterrevolutionary conspiracy” and sentenced to 29 years in prison, but the international outrage following the military show trial led to her being exiled to Spain in 1979.

Over the next 34 years Matha Frayde represented the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in Spain. Ambassador Frayde never backed down from her non-violent resistance: "The Cubans inside are the ones who have to say and decide and are those who, in short, have to achieve change and count on Cubans from the exile for the reconstruction." 

Human rights pioneer Dr. Ricardo Bofill

Ricardo Bofill spent twelve years in a Cuban prison for his defense of human rights. Emerging from prison he continued his work in Cuba until 1988 when he left the island and continued the work of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in Miami. Dr. Bofill in the 1987 documentary "Nobody Listened" stated:

"I can't understand the hatred towards me. Because, really in the only field I’ve done battle, is the field of ideas. In this field I’ve had no response just prison and the police. And I don’t know why because the revolution controls all mass media. They have editorials, journalists, even many writers in the world. I don’t know why the response, time and again, has been jail. The response should come in the field I fight in, with ideas. I was arrested again in 1983. On that occasion, I was sentenced to 17 years in jail accused of activities in the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and the last period of prison began. For reasons of health and others I know not of in 1985 I was placed in the status I’m now in which is “conditional liberty with restriction of movement."

The mission of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights is for the Cuban government to comply with the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Cuba had signed in 1948.


This human rights tradition had a separate branch that emerged parallel to the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, but in the Cuban exile. 

Elena Mederos during Cuba's Republican era

Elena Inés Mederos y Cabañas de González, Minister of Social Work in Cuba over the first five months in 1959 of Castro's revolutionary government. Born in 1900, she had been a suffragette and a co-founder of the National Feminist Alliance in 1924. Realizing that the new regime was becoming a dictatorship she resigned. In 1961 she went into exile. She was a founding vice president of the Association of Cuban-American Women. Together with activist and political scientist Frank Calzón, Elena Mederos founded Of Human Rights in 1976 with the same objective as the Cuban Committee for Human Rights: to defend, by nonviolent and legal means, persecuted individuals, dissidents and political prisoners in Cuba. She passed away in 1981.

Elena Mederos exiled in the United States

Sadly, Dr. Ricardo Bofill passed away in Miami on July 12, 2019, but his legacy lives on in Cuba in the Cuban democratic resistance to the Castro regime today.  However, today on December 10, 2019 it is important to remember the Cuban Republic's high point in 1948 when they achieved the drafting and passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Recovering Cuba's Pre-Castro human rights legacy

"We feel great pride that the first, very modest draft officially submitted to serve as the basis for the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man was written by Dr. Ernesto Díhigo, an eminent professor at the University of Havana and a member of the Cuban delegation." - Guy Pérez-Cisneros

Cuban diplomats in 2018 disrupt discussion on Cuban political prisoners.

 The Miami Herald, December 8, 2019

Can Cuba’s human rights legacy be recovered?

By John Suarez
Freedom House
 

Over the past 15 years, I witnessed how Cuban diplomats undermined international human rights standards, first at the United Nations Human Rights Commission and later at the UN Human Rights Council.

• On April 15, 2004 when the UN Human Rights Commission decided by a single vote to censure Cuba for its human rights record, a Cuban human rights defender attending the session, Frank Calzon, was physically attacked by a Cuban diplomat.
• On March 28, 2008 the Castro regime’s delegation, together with the Organization of Islamic Congress, successfully passed resolutions that turned the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression into an investigator into abuses of freedom of expression.
• On Feb. 2, 2009 during the Universal Periodic Review of China, Cuban Ambassador, Juan Antonio Fernandez Palacios, recommended that China repress human rights defenders with more firmness.
• On March 17, 2014 at the UN Human Rights Council, Cuban diplomats defended the North Korean regime’s human rights record.
•  On Sept. 21, 2018 Cuban Ambassador to the UN, Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, during the Universal Periodic Review on Cuba at the UN Human Rights Council stated that “our country will not accept monitors. Amnesty International will not enter Cuba and we do not need their advice.”

Less than a month later, Cuban diplomats led an “act of repudiation“ at the UN to prevent a discussion on political prisoners in Cuba.

Artists are now being arrested in Cuba for protesting Decree 349, a law that would eliminate the few artistic freedoms remaining there.

Prisoner of conscience Eduardo Cardet marked two years in prison on Nov. 30 for speaking critically of Castro’s legacy.

International Human Rights Day in Cuba will be a day that the Cuban secret police harass, detain, and assault human rights defenders attempting to exercise their rights.

It was not always this way.

Seventy years ago, a democratic Cuba helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and establish the UN Human Rights Commission.

Cuba’s last democratic president, Carlos Prio Socarras, was elected in free and fair elections and assumed office on Oct. 10, 1948. President Prio respected human rights, and this was reflected by the actions taken by his diplomats at the founding of the UN.

Cuba, Panama, and Chile were the first three countries to submit full drafts of human rights charters to the Commission. Latin American delegations, especially Mexico, Cuba, and Chile inserted language about the right to justice into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in what would become Article 8.

Cuban delegate Guy Pérez-Cisneros addressed the UN General Assembly on Dec. 10, 1948 proposing to vote for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Cuban Ambassador celebrated that it condemned racism and sexism, and also addressed the importance of the rule of law:

“My delegation had the honor of inspiring the final text, which finds it essential that the rights of man be protected by the rule of law, so that man will not be compelled to exercise the extreme recourse of rebellion against tyranny and oppression.”

This democratic Cuba was overthrown on March 10, 1952 by Fulgencio Batista and hopes of a democratic restoration frustrated by the Castro brothers in 1959.

Guy Pérez-Cisneros died of a stroke in 1953.

Ernesto Dihigo, like Pérez-Cisneros, left the diplomatic corps following the 1952 coup, but returned as Cuba’s Ambassador to the United States in January of 1959 retiring in 1960. He left Cuba in 1989 and died in Miami in 1991.

Democrats should share this history with Cubans on the island to demonstrate that civil and political rights are an intrinsic part of a shared Cuban heritage that in 1948 made world history and that the regime in the island today would like erased.

On  Tuesday, December 11th in Washington, DC at 1pm we will revisit this human rights legacy with Cuban human rights defenders. Register here to join us and to obtain more information on the event.



John Suarez is a program officer for Latin America Programs at Freedom House in Washington, D.C.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/article222862140.html#storylink=cpy

Cuba and the 1948 origins of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

 Here are excerpts from the speech delivered by the Republic of Cuba’s Permanent Delegate to the United Nations, Dr. Guy Pérez ­Cisneros; as being one of the proponents of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, prior to its voting, at the United Nations Third General Assembly, taking place at the Chaillot Palace, in Paris, France on December 10, 1948 .

Guy Pérez-Cisneros (center) and Ernesto Dihigo (right) in Palace of Chaillot, París, December 1948.

CUBA could not fail to participate in the choir of nations that wish to celebrate the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man. We feel great pride that the first, very modest draft officially submitted to serve as the basis for the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man was written by Dr. Ernesto Díhigo, an eminent professor at the University of Havana and a member of the Cuban delegation.

Today the initiative [is presented] by the illustrious Rapporteur of the Third Committee, Senator Emile Saint‐Lot, and by its President, Charles Habib Malik Laar, Lebanon’s envoy to Havana. Cuba is deeply satisfied to see a Haitian as the bearer to humanity of the United Nation’s most valuable message. Haiti is precisely one of those privileged lands whose whole history is characterized by a heroic and constant effort to defend and enforce the rights of man. And Cuba is proud of having nominated as Rapporteur [this] outstanding son of a French‐speaking American nation, Haiti, a land in which the great Simon Bolivar, our Bolivar, found both moral encouragement and material aid to achieve his great task of liberation and freedom.

My delegation is duty bound to acknowledge the meritorious work of the Committee on the Rights of Man, which labored untiringly for two years under the inspiring leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt and wrote a truly valuable document that beautifully and forcefully express the highest aspiration of 20th Century man: The dawning of a world in which all human beings, freed from fear and want, will enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of opinion.

Another historic document that inspired the Third Committee’s work was the First Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, endorsed in Bogotá by the nations of the Americas. Also, through the determined effort and great power of conviction of the Mexican delegate, Dr. Pablo Campo Ortiz, [was added] the important Article Nine [freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile], based on Mexico’s right of protection.

My delegation had the honor of inspiring the final text, which finds it essential that the rights of man be protected by the rule of law, so that man will not be compelled to exercise the extreme recourse of rebellion against tyranny and oppression. Further, this is an homage to France from my country, which greatly admired and watch the stages of it’s glorious résistance.

We are pleased that the social rights that are the main contribution of the 20th Century to this issue – just as legal rights were in the 19th Century – were treated in the Declaration with the importance they deserve.

We also thank the United Nations for its favorable reception of two Cuban Amendments on the subject of labor that recognize the right of man to freely pursue his vocation and to receive a fair and satisfactory wage that will guarantee him and his family an existence befitting their human dignity.

My delegation will not forget the way in which the United Nations welcomed another of our initiatives. To include in the Declaration the right to the protection of one’s honor, a high moral concept rooted deep in the soul of every Hispanic person. And we can not silence the fact that – through the joint efforts of France, Mexico and Cuba – recognition was finally granted to those who belong to the only legitimate aristocracy: Creator, be the artist, writers, or scientists. They are entitled to the protection of the moral and material gains obtained through their scientific, literary, or artistic productions.

My country and my people are highly satisfied to see that the odious racial discrimination and the unfair differences between men and women have been condemned forever.

The Cuban delegation hesitated often before submitting its numerous amendments. It went ahead with the understanding that perfection and critical severity were among its duties. A delegation that represented a nation that proudly produced the Montecristi Manifesto was entitled to be demanding. The manifesto outlined goals of Cuba’s independence movement and was drafted by José Martí and Máximo Gómez.

The members of the Cuban delegation are deeply moved when – as they review the articles of the important Declaration that we will adopt in a few minutes – they recognize that all its provisions could have been accepted by the generous spirit who was the apostle of our independence: José Martí, the hero who – as he turned his homeland into a nation – gave us forever this generous rule: “With everyone, and for the good of everyone.”

By: Guy Pérez‐Cisneros,
Permanent Delegate of the Republic of Cuba to the United Nations(1948 ‐ 1953) .

CON TODOS Un homenaje a Guy Pérez Cisneros from Instituto de Artivismo INSTAR on Vimeo.

Original Spanish text and English translation available here in PDF format

On  Tuesday, December 11th in Washington, DC at 1pm we will revisit this human rights legacy with Cuban human rights defenders. Register here to join us and to obtain more information on the event.

 

The Cuban Amendment to the Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man that would have fought totalitarianism in the Americas

Cuban diplomats in 1948 advocated for a right to resistance against totalitarianism in the  Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man but failed to pass the motion.

Seventy years ago the Pan-American Union was reconstituted as the Organization American States on April 30, 1948.   This occurred during the Ninth International Conference of American States that was held in Bogotá, Colombia between March and May 1948.

Cuban Ambassador Oscar Gans y Martinez

 During this gathering the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the world's first general human rights instrument, was adopted. During this gathering the Cuban delegation presented a motion to amend the Declaration to recognize a right to resistance against oppression or tyranny. The motion was voted on with 10 votes in favor; 10 against and one abstention and failed. Below is the case made by the Cuban delegate Ambassador Oscar Gans y Martinez.

Mister GANS (Cuba): Mister President and distinguished delegates: America hates tyranny and oppression, and that is why this Conference has agreed happily to a declaration against international activism that, undermining democracy and the rights of man, tries to impose totalitarian conceptions by foreign or extracontinental efforts.
 

The Delegation of Cuba submits to this Honorable Plenary Assembly an additional amendment to the Declaration of the Rights of Man, in the sense that following Article XVIII of this American Declaration of the Essential Rights and Duties of Man, the following concept be added: "The right of resistance to ostensible acts of oppression or tyranny is recognized", because this addition plays harmoniously with the pronouncement against totalitarian international activism, and by making a broader concept, prevents that by American efforts and without foreign activism they could also organize ways of life and systems within America to liquidate their own pronouncements of this Conference regarding the rights of man. Thus, concluding, the Delegation of Cuba understands that if this addition is agreed to the rights of man, the initiative approved a few days ago is completed in order to ensure that America remains safe against all risk of oppression or tyranny, whether it has international organizations as an agency, foreign or native elements of our own American Continent.

It is ironic that it was a democratic Cuba in 1948 that advocated for a right to resistance against totalitarianism whether it be imported from abroad or home grown. Seven decades later, perhaps it is time again to reconsider this amendment, in light of what has happened in the Hemisphere.

The Cuban diplomats at the bottom of the page played important roles in drafting both the  American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights later that same year.

Ambassador Gans would go on to appear in the pages of Life Magazine diplomatically outmaneuvering Soviet diplomat Gromyko at the United Nations in 1951.

Below is the original text in Spanish of the resolution presented in 1948:

El señor GANS (Cuba): Señor Presidente y señores delegados: América odia la tiranía y la opresión, y por eso ha acordado esta Conferencia un pronunciamiento feliz contra el activismo internacional que, socavando la democracia y los derechos del hombre, trata de imponer las concepciones totalitarias por gestiones foráneas o extracontinentales.

La Delegación de Cuba somete a esta Honorable asamblea plenaria una enmienda adicional a la Declaración de los derechos del hombre, en el sentido de que a continuación del Artículo XVIII de esta Declaración Americana de los Derechos y Deberes Esenciales del Hombre, se agregue el siguiente concepto: "Se reconoce el derecho de resistencia ante actos ostensibles de opresión o tiranía", porque esta adición juega armónicamente con el pronunciamiento contra el activismo internacional de carácter totalitario, y haciendo un concepto más amplio, impide que por gesti6n americana y sin activismo foráneo pudieran también organizarse formas de vida y sistemas dentro de América que liquidaran los propios pronunciamientos de esta Conferencia respecto de los derechos del hombre. Así, terminando, la Delegación de Cuba entiende que de acordarse esta adición a los derechos del hombre, se completa la iniciativa aprobada hace algunos días a fin de 'que quede América garantizada contra todo riesgo de opresión o tiranía, ya tenga por agencia grupos internacionales foráneos o propios elementos nativos del Continente Americana.


CUBA 

PRESIDENTE DE LA DELEGACION:
S. E. Guillermo Belt,
Embajador de Cuba en los Estados Unidos de América


SUBSTITUTO:
S. E. Oscar Gans y Martinez,
Embajador Extraordinario y Plenipotenciario en la República Argentina

DELEGADOS:
S. E. Ernesto Dihigo y López Trigo,
Profesor de la Universidad de La Habana

S. E. Carlos Tabernilla,
Ministro de Cuba en Colombia

Señor Ricardo Sarbasa,
Primer Secretario de la Embajada de Cuba en los Estados Unidos de América

Señor Guy Perez Cisneros,
Agregado Comercial de Cuba en los Estados Unidos de América

SECRETARIO GENERAL:
Señor Emilio Pando,
Segundo Secretario de Legación, Ministerio de Estado, La Habana