Cuba's historic role in human rights

VERBATIM
Cuba's historic role in human rights
Posted on Sat, May. 10, 2008
By PABLO PEREZ-CISNEROS

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the U.N. Declaration of Human
Rights. Below are excerpts from a speech by Miamian Pablo Pérez-Cisneros
at a Vatican conference sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.

The founding conference of the United Nations took place in April 1945
attended by representatives of fifty nations in San Francisco, Calif. At
the time, one of the most important documents to affect mankind's
relationships -- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- had yet to
be developed. The greatest source of pride for me is the role that my
homeland of Cuba played in general and the leadership role played by its
delegate, Guy Pérez-Cisneros, my late father. . . .

The first meeting [of the U.N. Human Rights Commission] took place in
Geneva, in December 1947, and subsequently more than 80 meetings were
held in various locations without much consensus on the substance of
what the declaration should contain.

.. . . At the third assembly of the United Nations on Sept. 28, 1948,
Argentina and Cuba proposed and obtained approval for naming Haiti's
representative, Emile Saint-Lot, as the first Rapporteur to the
Commission of Human Rights. Saint-Lot was a distinguished gentleman and
diplomat. In their multiple meetings, the Latin American diplomats
argued that the already approved Organization of American States
Declaration of Rights and Duties of Men be considered as the basis for
the Universal Declaration. It was Guy Pérez-Cisneros, from the Cuban
delegation, who presented and defended that document. . . .

Among the notable amendments presented by Cuba (and ultimately approved)
were: the right of the individual to observe his/her vocation, or that
each person has the liberty to choose whatever type of work he or she
wants to perform; the right of each worker to receive a satisfactory and
equitable remuneration, together with other means of social protection.
A third Cuban initiative was to include the right to honor and to be
protected against arbitrary interference in the individual's private
life. . . .

Nine initiatives

Various circumstances contributed to the role that Cuba and
Pérez-Cisneros had in the formulation of that exemplary document, whose
importance was the wholesale revindication of the absolute dignity and
freedom of all human beings. In all, there were nine initiatives that
Pérez-Cisneros was able to convince the various delegates into
incorporating in the Declaration. This happened during no less than 181
meetings. It was the Cuban delegation that presented the first draft and
how the declaration should read. The author of that document was Cuba's
famed jurist, Ernesto Díhigo. . . .

All this, brings us back to the noble ideas and contributions made by
Cuba and the other member countries of the OAS, which made this
declaration a reality. It also reminds those who choose to listen of the
incredible irony that Cuba, the nation whose initiatives nourished a
good portion of the Universal Declaration, remains today a venue for the
repressions of those very rights.

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other_views/story/528023.html