On US manipulation of the UN Commission on Human Rights for its anti-Cuba actions

By LUIS G. JALANDONI
NDFP Chief International Representative
Member, NDFP National Executive Committee

The US government is once again using the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) which is holding its 61st Session from March 14 to April 22, 2005 as a forum to carry out anti-Cuba intrigues and manoeuvres and using its economic and political clout to bend other countries against Cuba. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) denounces the US for such actions and supports the Cuban people and government in defending their national sovereignty and their right to chart their own independent course as a people.

 

Ever since the Cuban people overthrew the corrupt and brutal US puppet regime of Fulgencio Batista in a popular revolution, the US has resorted to all kinds of hostile actions to destabilize, subvert and destroy Cuba. But the US has been repeatedly frustrated because of the firm unity of the Cuban people and their government in opposing imperialist aggression and defending their national independence.

US imperialism alternately uses and abuses the United Nations and its agencies according to its own narrow interests. It manipulates the UN whenever it suits its purpose. It also disregards and heaps abuses on the UN whenever it cannot get its acquiescence.

It is the height of hypocrisy for the US to pass judgment on the human rights record of other countries. US imperialism is the No. 1 plunderer, aggressor, terrorist and the worst human rights violator.

Its wars of aggression and occupation of Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Iraq have killed and maimed hundreds of thousands, destroyed cities and ruined their economies. Its record of installing and supporting tyrants such as Marcos, Pinochet, Park Chung-Hee, Mobuto, and a whole line of military dictators is unmatched by any of the other imperialist powers. Its flagrant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib have been justly condemned by the international community.

Using the pretext of the “war on terror”, it is installing a virtual police state against its own people with its USA Patriot Act and other measures that trample on the democratic rights of the American people.

The Filipino and Cuban people share a common legacy of being under the foreign domination of US imperialism. But while the Cuban people have succeeded in ending US dominance, the Filipino people are still struggling to win national independence and social liberation from US imperialism and its local puppet state in the Philippines.

The NDFP extends its militant solidarity to the Cuban people and government under the leadership of President Fidel Castro in their continuing struggle against US imperialist aggression and in their struggle to build a better society. The NDFP expresses its support to the courageous efforts of the Cuban people and their government to preserve the gains of their revolution and wishes them more victories in the years to come.