Washington – Cuba and four other nations accused of widespread human-rights abuses won seats Tuesday on the U.N. Human Rights Council, newly created to replace a controversial agency where abusers were often members.
Cuba’s candidacy was viewed as a test case for the fairness of the future council.
Other nations singled out by human-rights groups as being unworthy of membership yet still elected were Russia, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
U.N. General Assembly President Jan Eliasson, who oversaw the negotiations that created the 47-member council, played down the controversy, saying the council’s creation was a “truly historic occasion.”
But critics were unconvinced. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said calling the new council an improvement was “farcical” and that its composition was “irresponsible.”
“Like a juvenile delinquent with indulgent parents, the U.N. will persist in its course toward destruction until it is decisively held to account,” she said.
The council replaced the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, where violators like Cuba, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Libya regularly got themselves elected and then worked to block condemnations of their abuses.
Cuba won the seventh spot out of eight reserved for Latin American and Caribbean nations during the new council’s first membership vote at a General Assembly meeting in New York. The other Latin American nations that secured seats were Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Uruguay and Ecuador. Brazil, the top vote-getter in the group, garnered 165 votes. Cuba obtained 135 votes.
The council had been criticized by the Bush administration and some members of Congress as a lukewarm compromise that did not ensure that rights abusers were kept out.
After the vote, Rick Grenell, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said membership had improved somewhat over the previous body.
“But we still have certain members that are troublesome on the council,” he added.
The U.S. government, which will supply more than one-fifth of the council’s financing, was one of three nations opposing its creation in a March U.N. vote. The Bush administration declined to run for a seat but has said it will cooperate with the new body, while keeping a watchful eye on its work.
The Cuban foreign ministry posted a statement on its website calling the vote a defeat of Washington’s efforts to stop Cuba from gaining a seat and “irrefutable proof of Cuba’s international prestige.”
