> (Can't help wondering what the US would say if Castro followed
> Israel's example and openly murdered trouble-makers?
There's a difference between an extra-judicial killing of terrorists and the extra-judicial jailing of contrarian librarians. (But, of course, the occupation on the whole is, I think, a much worse moral travesty than the jailing of tens or hundreds of dissenters.)
> 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.
The problem with Mr. Bush's prisoners in Cuba is that they've been denied due process. Judging on the report of one Afghan boy who was recently released, the conditions are quite nice. I doubt they're totured; the US seems to be in the business of contracting that out these days.
> 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".)
So they could get starvation rations and worry about being assaulted by their cellmates?
Guantanamo Bay is a travesty on its own unhappy terms. Facile analogies can only distract.
-- Luke
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas.
>
> -------------
>
> 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."
>
> --------------------
>
> 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."
>
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