Cuba Ratifies Convention on Forced Disappearances 


02/03/2009

Cuba ratified the International Convention for the Protection against Forced Disappearances Monday, in a new expression of cooperation of the authorities of the island with the human rights mechanisms.

The delivery of the instrument of ratification was in charge of the Cuban Ambassador before the UN, Abelardo Moreno, during a brief ceremony in the UN central headquarters in New York.

Cuba is the eighth country signing the Convention, which needs at least 20 states that have signed in a same way for validity.

With this ratification Cuba is now part of 42 of the most important international treaties or conventions of human rights.

"This is a new sample of the will of Cuba of strengthening cooperation with the universal mechanisms of promotion and protection of human rights, on the base of respect to the sovereignty of our country and free determination", Moreno said.

During a brief meeting with the press, the Cuban Ambassador highlighted that his country has resisted 50 years of aggressions, acts of terrorism and the strongest blockade without never to appeal to forced disappearance, torture or extrajudicial execution.

The ratification of this instrument was preceded by the announcement that the Cuban government has invited the UN Special Ombudsman against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatments, Manfred Novak, to visit the island this year.

This is the second UN specialist in topics of human rights to visit Cuba after the Special Ombudsman for the Right to Feeding, Jean Ziegler, did it in 2007.

In this respect, the Cuban Ambassador stated that his country is willing to continue inviting other special officials, in tune with the new conditions and in a coherent way with the cooperation tradition in this field.

"We are in a new moment to the international cooperation, after the elimination of the unfair and selective anti-Cuban presidential mandate that the US imposed by means of blackmail and pressure in the missing UN Human Rights Commission", he pointed out.

A spokesman of the Cuban diplomatic mission before the UN said that in preparation of the visit of Novak his country has foreseen to have the report to send to the Committee against Torture for the middle of the year.

The Cuban authorities are also sending their reports to the Committee for Children’s Rights and the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Also, Cuba signed the International Pact of Civil and Political Rights a year ago, as well as the one of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Moreno indicated that the ratification of this Convention is in a particularly important moment, since on February 5, Cuba will appear before the UN Council of Human Rights in Geneva for the Universal Periodic Exam.

"It is a procedure that we estimate very important, and we assume it with total seriousness and full sense of responsibility," the Cuban Ambassador concluded.

Fuente: PL