U.N. Rights Body Rejects Condemnation of Cuba

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights dealt the United States a major diplomatic blow Tuesday, defeating its resolution criticizing Cuba over human rights and political prisoners.

The 53-member body also condemned “systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations” in Iraq and renewed the mandate of its investigator, former Dutch Foreign Minister Max van der Stoel.

But it delayed voting for a day on Iran after Pakistan put forward amendments on behalf of the 55-member Organization of the Islamic Conference that would take the teeth out of a European Union text. The OIC proposal would delete criticism of a “large number of executions” as well as of amputations and stonings in Iran.

The commission passed resolutions expressing strong concern about executions in Myanmar and arbitrary detentions in Nigeria. It called on the two nations’ military governments to restore democracy and renewed the terms of its investigations of the two.

On its main day of annual voting, the U.N. body also urged the Democratic Republic of Congo to cooperate in investigating alleged mass killings--a probe that was halted last week.

It strongly condemned “continuing violence and genocidal activities perpetrated in Rwanda by former members of the Rwandan armed forces, Interahamwe [Hutu militia] and other insurgent groups.”

The commission condemned widespread abuses in Afghanistan and called for a halt to discrimination against women.

The defeat of the resolution on Cuba, which ended seven years of U.S.-led censure by the body, also meant an end to the mandate of the commission’s special investigator into rights on the island.

Carl-Johan Groth, a Swedish lawyer who has served as independent U.N. rapporteur since 1992, said in his annual report last month that Cuba maintains a policy of widespread and often brutal repression against domestic critics of its system.