GENEVA -- Last Thursday, I was on the schedule to deliver testimony at the United Nations Human Rights Council. I was invited to be part of UN Watch's campaign to stop Hugo Chavez's bid to elect Venezuela to a seat on the council this November.
NGOs are allotted several minutes to say their peace and contribute to the debate about rights. I sat down to deliver my speech and no sooner had I mentioned the word "Cuba" in the context of human rights violations than the Cuban delegation began to create a scene, complete with banging their fists on the table and kicking over a chair, to force the council president to interrupt my speech on a point of order.
Watch the heated 12-minute exchange from June 28th at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Here is what I was able to say:
My name is Thor Halvorssen and I am from Venezuela. In 2004, my mother was shot by the security forces of the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez.
Through the Human Rights Foundation, which I founded and direct, I have carefully monitored the Venezuelan state and have established that its current government is among Latin America's worst human rights violators.
In Venezuela, exercising free speech is fraught with risks. Political dissent is criminalized. Property is capriciously and unlawfully seized. Opposition politicians are disqualified from elections thanks to false accusations. Journalists are harassed and media critical of the government is simply shut down. Judges are fired and even sent to prison when the president dislikes their rulings. More than 150,000 people have been killed in Venezuela since Lieutenant Colonel Chávez was elected president in 1999. Add to this the more than 5,000 who have died in the country's disgraceful prisons, many of them awaiting trial and therefore possibly innocent of the charges that put them behind bars in the first place. No such murder rate had ever existed in Venezuela, or anywhere else in the world for that matter. The government has proven that it is incapable of protecting the most basic human right -- the right to life.
While all of this has taken place this council has remained silent.
Madam President, despite all of this, Venezuela is now seeking election to this council. When it was founded in 2006 the council promised that only those countries that "uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights" would be the only ones elected. To elect Venezuela would shame and embarrass this council and would allow Venezuela to shield its horrendous record of abuse and equally problematically, to validate other authoritarian governments such as Syria, Iran and one that sits shamefully on this council: Cuba. Electing Venezuela would deny this council the chance to shine a light into the darkness that envelops Venezuela and it will blunt actions to protect 29 millions Venezuelans who are at the mercy [of a malicious and incompetent government].
At this point the Cuban representatives of the 53-year Castro family dynasty began their kinetic table-banging. They asked that my words be struck from the official UN record. A debate ensued between Cuba, China, and the U.S. as to whether to include my remarks. I was given the floor back by the council's president so that I could "finish" my statement and I was able to get this line out:
"Madam President, this year, four authoritarian governments -- China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Russia -- will step down. You have a golden opportunity..."
It was as if a crime had been committed. Cuba, Russia, China, and Pakistan all loudly protested. The council's president immediately cut me off. Cuba stated it would not permit such language in the council. Russia aligned itself with Cuba and stated that the human rights council had its own agenda. Russia accused me of violating procedure. China went further and demanded that I be prohibited from continuing with my presentation as it was out of the scope of what I was "permitted" to say. In other words, mentioning human rights violators like Cuba or China (the only country with an imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate), at the human rights council, in the time allotted to an NGO focused on human rights, is considered an unseemly deviation from the agenda.
I went to Geneva to leave testimony, for posterity given the demonstrable inefficacy of this august UN body, but I didn't expect that the dictatorships represented in the room would behave like a perfectly choreographed set of villains, as one would expect a dictatorship to behave. I was unable to finish but I didn't have to -- they proved my point.
Outside the council, several country delegates approached me and thanked me for my "courage." How pitiable that it is considered courageous, inside the United Nations, which sits in a free country, Switzerland, to say a few words that could upset governments that should be pariahs. And to think that those who came over to me said they had to do so discreetly fearing that the Cuban delegation "might give us a lot of trouble." No less than two European powers are afraid of a bankrupt police state in the Caribbean whose main exports are broken dreams, exiled political prisoners, and failed revolutionary ideas. No wonder the Human Rights Council is so dysfunctional. The only delegate to interact with me on the floor of the council was a diplomat from Sweden.
Venezuela will most likely succeed in obtaining a seat on the council this coming fall. And on Venezuelan state television they will boast of membership at the highest UN body addressing human rights -- making it clear to any observer that the UN will not address human rights matters there. Remarkably, they have not once lived up to the dictates of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that has published findings of political persecution. Already, Venezuela has indicated it wishes to leave the highest human rights court in the Western Hemisphere -- the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. Why? Because it loses, time and time and time again. At the UN they will take Cuba's seat as chief interrupter.
The experience was a powerful reminder that those who fear freedom of speech are those with something to hide. The truth, in Russia, China, Cuba, and Venezuela, is a frightful thing to the criminals in charge.
Thor Halvorssen is president of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation and founder and CEO of the Oslo Freedom Forum. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
While no-one claims that that those who find themselves in Halvorssen's sights are perfect, to start with the proposition that the West is the epitome of human rights perfection is bordering on lunacy.
It would be simplicity itself to list the crimes of the USA over the last half century, and equally simple to damn the crime of their European allies, not least for their complicity.
Perhaps what Halvorssen sees as human rights is the right of people like him to be super rich and privileged at the expense of the vast majority of not only his fellow countrymen, but the global poor and disenfranchised generally. In that respect he would have fitted in perfectly during his time at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.
While no-one claims that that those who find themselves in Halvorssen's sights are perfect, to start with the proposition that the West is the epitome of human rights perfection is bordering on lunacy.
It would be simplicity itself to list the crimes of the USA over the last half century, and equally simple to damn the crime of their European allies, not least for their complicity.
Perhaps what Halvorssen sees as human rights is the right of people like him to be super rich and privileged at the expense of the vast majority of not only his fellow countrymen, but the gobal poor and disenfranchised generally. In that respect he would have fitted in perfectly during his time at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.
That said, I am not completely sure what your intention is with this post. Are you saying that we should use their negative as an excuse to dismiss the charges against Venezuela? Are you saying that because Mr. Chavez's regime has not done acts as barbaric as those committed by the USA we should dismiss the accusations against Venezuela?
Please clarify. I have always find moral relativity a poor argument that reflects even more poorly on those who use it.
I say it again in case you didn't understand it first time: 200,000 people dead in **crime related episodes**.
During the past 14 years Mr. Chavez has essentially done nothing about the problem while we Venezuelans are being slaughtered on the streets on a daily basis. Even worse, he has taken the weapons away from the police, reduced funding, collapsed the justice and penitentiary systems and has engaged on a daily discourse of hate that fuels violence. The impunity level has reached 92%.
Meanwhile, he has given away our resources to other countries like Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua and spent billions of dollars in useless Russian weaponry that does nothing to guarantee the safety of the average Venezuelan.
So, you see, those 150,000-200,000 murdered are completely Mr. Chavez's responsibility. If what he says about being a devout christian is true, I would not like to be in his shoes when he passes away -which may be quite soon according to what we know- as he is going to have to do a lot of explaining to do.
It seems to me that there are a few facts concerning human rights that have been ignored by Western Governments.
The fact that the brutal Chinese Communist Party has murdered 80 million of its own people since 1949, the fact that it is attempting the genocide of tens of millions of innocent Falun Gong practitioners by the use of torture, slavery, organ harvesting and murder. The fact that there are hundreds of slave camps hidden all over Red China where all the junk that is sold here is being produced. The fact that a million homes were demolished to build the Olympic Complex with no compensation offered to the poor families who lost everything . The fact that 64 kindergarden children were riding in a nine seat van when it crashed and 15 of the children died while rich Party members buy their girlfriends million dollar apartments in Paris. The fact that the poor pay twelve different taxes while the rich pay nary one.
All of these human rights issues I mentioned are true but the Governments of the World are not informing its citizens because then some very rich greedy corporations might lose out on some business deal with the gangster Chinese regime.
Just my understanding, thank you.
Mr. Chavez has turned Venezuela into a Cuban colony. No high-level decision is taken in the country without the Castro brothers knowledge and consent. We have an unknown number of Cubans (in the tens of thousands though) occupying every sensitive position you can think of: military, notaries, food distribution, embassies, intelligence, etc.
As for the Russians and Chinese they own the future of many upcoming generations of Venezuelans thanks to Mr. Chavez mortgaging our country to them just to further his personal agenda. They for sure don't want to discuss anything that may jeopardize their investment.
Your attacks against Venezuela are just a cynical joke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyWLTbHMHmc&feature=youtu.be
CONTROL OF INTERNET ACCESS
In Cuba, access to the internet remains under state control. It is regulated by the Law of Security of Information, which prohibits access to internet services from private homes. Therefore, the internet in Cuba has a social vocation and remains accessible at education centres, work-places and other public institutions. Internet can also be accessed in hotels but at a high cost. In October 2009, the government adopted a new law allowing the Cuban Postal Services to establish cyber-cafés in its premises and offer internet access to the public. However, home connections are not yet allowed for the vast majority of Cubans and only those favoured by the government are able to access the internet from their own homes.
However, many blogs are not accessible from within Cuba because the Cuban authorities have put in place filters restricting access. The blogs affected are mainly those that openly criticize the Cuban government and its restrictions on freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and movement. For example, Generation Y is one of the dozens of blogs that are filtered or intermittently blocked by the government and are not accessible inside Cuba.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR25/005/2010/en/62b9caf8-8407-4a08-90bb-b5e8339634fe/amr250052010en.pdf
STATE MONOPOLY OF THE MEDIA
The media has the potential to help shape public opinion and to
monitor and assess the performance of those holding public office at all levels; it is an
important tool for scrutinizing government practices in all societies no matter their political
ideology. The absence of an independent media is a serious obstacle to the enjoyment of
freedom of expression and the adequate review of corrupt and abusive official practices.
Restrictions on the Cuban media are stringent and pervasive and clearly stop those in the
country from enjoying their right to freedom of opinion and expression, including freedom to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers.8 The state maintains a total monopoly on television, radio, the press, internet
service providers, and other electronic means of communication.9 According to official
figures, there are currently 723 publications (406 print and 317 digital), 88 radio stations,
four national TV channels (two devoted to educational programming), 16 regional TV stations
and an international TV channel. All are financed and controlled by the government.10 Three
newspapers provide national coverage: Granma, which is the organ of the Cuban Communist
Party, Juventud Rebelde and Trabajadores.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR25/005/2010/en/62b9caf8-8407-4a08-90bb-b5e8339634fe/amr250052010en.pdf