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

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