[lbo-talk] People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

[Bill Bartlett]

(Can't help wondering what the US would say if Castro followed 
Israel's example and openly murdered trouble-makers? As for CUBA not 
letting human rights monitors onto the island, the US government has 
jurisdiction over the most well-known hellish prison on the island of 
Cuba. It doesn't allow UN inspections either. Let alone family 
visits. Oh, the US also tortures Mr Bush's prisoners in Cuba. In fact 
those prisoners of Castro should probably thank their lucky stars 
they only came to the attention of Castro, rather than the leader of 
the "free world".)

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/26/opinion/26FRI3.html?th

Mr. Castro's Prisoners

Published: March 26, 2004

[...]

"Cuba is not content to deprive these men - and one woman, the 
prominent economist Martha Beatriz Roque - of their liberty for what 
will be, in some cases, the rest of their lives. They are being held 
in hellish conditions, in many cases as far from their families as 
Cuba allows. They are in rat- and insect-infected cells, get 
starvation rations and are forced to share space with violent 
criminals or to suffer in solitary confinement. Their average 
sentence is 19 years. Some of the prisoners' wives have been warned 
that they will lose their children if they continue to protest their 
husbands' detentions.

Sadly, foreign criticism of the Cuban government's repression has 
been muted. Last year at the United Nations Human Rights Commission, 
which meets annually in March and April, the members voted 31-to-15 
against a resolution criticizing the crackdown. Instead, the 
commission approved a mild statement calling for a human rights 
monitor to visit the island; Cuba has simply not let her in.

The near appeasement of Fidel Castro is in large part due to the 
outside world's fury at Washington these days, which the Communist 
regime masterfully exploits. The U.N. Human Rights Commission in 
Geneva is again considering whether to condemn the Castro regime. The 
continued imprisonment of Cuba's brave independent thinkers is a 
totalitarian crackdown by a brutal dictatorship. President Bush's 
unpopularity aside, the international community must recognize this 
truth."

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http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/03/25/un.yassin.ap/index.html

U.S. vetoes resolution to condemn Yassin killing

Friday, March 26, 2004 Posted: 0908 GMT (1708 HKT)

"UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United States vetoed a U.N. Security 
Council resolution Thursday condemning Israel's assassination of 
Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin."