Editorial: End all the human rights abuses in Cuba

The recent wave of repression that Fidel Castro launched across almost all of Cuba is truly disgusting.

It may well be argued that no government can or should tolerate people commandeering a boat in order to flee to another country, and that those attempting to do such a thing should be sent to prison. However, when nobody is killed or injured during the course of the crime capital punishment, a barbarous practice that ought to be abolished even in the most serious cases, is absolutely unjustified. A summary trial that had the three men who tried to divert a launch to Florida shot within less than two weeks of their arrest compounds the Cuban government’s offense against humanity.

And then there are the dozens of dissidents who did nothing wrong at all --- they just expressed political ideas that conflict with Fidel’s --- who have been sent to prison for long terms, some of them for life. That the actuarial odds indicate that those who received life sentences will probably outlive Castro, and that the political odds are that they’ll probably also outlive the present Cuban dictatorship, is slim satisfaction. They should be freed immediately. They never should have faced charges of any sort in the first place. People everywhere should be free to criticize governments, form political parties, organize labor unions, hold and express off-beat opinions and report the news.

Let us not forget, however, that Fidel’s writ does not extend to all of Cuba’s territory. The United States occupies a base on Guantanamo Bay, and at that base George W. Bush is responsible for serious human rights violations of his own.

Hundreds of men and boys who were captured in combat in Afghanistan, including a number under age 16, are being held without charges or any semblance of due process of law, and in most cases in gross violation of the Geneva Conventions. A number of other individuals who were arrested outside Afghanistan are also being held there.

Yes, the United States was justified in making war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and even more so against the international Al Qaeda network. However, those captured in the fighting in Afghanistan are prisoners of war and ought to be treated as such. Calling them “illegal combatants,” denying the International Red Cross access to them, confining them in little cages out in the tropical sun and using sensory deprivation torture as an interrogation technique may be politically acceptable to Americans who want revenge for the atrocities of September 11, 2001, but in the long run it will mean that American soldiers who are captured will be murdered, tortured or otherwise abused. And notice that these abuses have not led to the capture of Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar, and that attacks by remnants of the Taliban against the US-installed government in Kabul are increasing rather than dying out.

Though Christian fanatics like John Ashcroft and Muslim fanatics like Osama bin Laden concur in their rejection of the Eastern religious concept of karma, they can’t avoid its workings. What goes around comes around. The Bush administration’s flouting of international law will some day come back to haunt the United States.

The repressive policies of both governments that run parts of Cuba are worthy of the sternest rebukes, and it would be hypocrisy to criticize the one and not the other.

editorial

End human rights abuses in Cuba --- both Castro’s and Bush’s