Cuba's (in)human rights

Try explaining to Desi Mendoza Rivero that the United Nations Human Rights Commission won't be condemning Cuba for human-rights abuses this year, as it has the last seven years.

Dr. Mendoza is a longtime human-rights activist in Cuba, whose regime considers that criminal. He hasn't been allowed to practice medicine since 1994, when he tried and failed to leave Cuba.

Last July he was jailed for speaking to the foreign press about an outbreak of dengue fever, a highly contagious tropical disease. He had urged people to take preventive measures. Now Dr. Mendoza is serving an eight-year term for ``disseminating enemy propaganda.''

Tell Felix A. Bonne, Rene Gomez, Vladimiro Roca, and Martha Beatriz Roque that, at the U.N. Human Rights Commission, voting is politically
charged. The four dissident leaders still await trial, jailed since last July after publishing a stinging critique of Cuba's repressive government in The Homeland Belongs to Us All.

Tell them that the resolution denouncing Cuba's violations was sponsored by the United States, whose trade embargo is increasingly vilified by other nations. Even though the embargo has nothing to do with Cuba's self-inflicted, disastrous economic policies.

Talk to ordinary Cuban citizens who, after 39 years of systematic repression, carry a censor within. Try to convince them that the Pope's visit and visible religious tolerance lessen other human-rights abuses. Then pray for all peoples, including those in countries whose governments practice oppression and oppose the condemnation of Cuba.