Global Policy Forum

Cuban charge d'affaires to the Czech Republic David Paulovich said today he believed there would be no more Czech-drafted anti-Cuban resolution in the future. "We believe that the promise of the Czechs not to submit any more resolutions (on human rights nonobservance in Cuba) will be fulfilled next year," Paulovich said.

The Foreign Ministry today confirmed to CTK that the Czech Republic would most probably submit no resolution on Cuba. "Mr Minister (Jan Kavan) has already made an unofficial statement in this sense," Jirina Valentova from the ministry's press department said. At a press conference Paulovich distributed to journalists a video recording of Cuban television programmes on the alleged anti-Cuban activities of opposition Freedom Union Deputy Ivan Pilip and former student leader Jan Bubenik who had spent 25 days in Cuban prison in January. "Ivan Pilip and Jan Bubenik will go to Geneva to testify before the UN Human Rights Commission on what they call violations of human rights which they saw in Cuba," Paulovich said.

The commission currently discusses the "Cuban resolution" which has been submitted for the third time by the Czech Republic. The Czech Foreign Ministry has said that in this year's Czech draft UN resolution on the human rights situation in Cuba, unlike last year's and that of 1999, it wants to include a passage calling the US sanctions against Havana counterproductive.

The United States administration has protested against this, and Poland, which in the past cosponsored the resolution with the Czech Republic, has reportedly said that if there is a passage criticizing the US sanctions it will not cosponsor the resolution this time. Paulovich today said he considered UN resolutions condemning human rights violations in Cuba as "direct American actions against Cuba". "If the mention of the blockade were not to appear there, the resolution would be too American," he continued, adding that he hoped the resolution would be rejected.

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