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U.N. PANEL INVITES CUBA TO IMPROVE HUMAN RIGHTS.

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Departing from its customary resolutions condemning Cuba for human rights violations, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution April 19 that recognized Cuba's progress in social fields but asked the government to consider improvements in human rights. Although the resolution was more moderate than in previous years, Cuba reacted with heated attacks on Mexico, Uruguay, and other Latin American neighbors who supported it.

Since the US began pressing for condemnations of Cuba at the annual meetings of the commission in Geneva, the vote has ranged from 21-20 against Cuba (1999) to 19-16 against the resolution (1998). Combining "no" votes and abstentions, a majority, running as high as 37 of the 53 commission member- states (1998), has usually not voted to condemn Cuba. Nevertheless, the struggle over votes and the ensuing exchange of insults has come to be more important than the vote itself.

For three years running, the Czech Republic sponsored the resolution on Cuba, last year with unpleasant results as Cuba launched a ferocious attack on the Czech government and some Latin American states--notably Argentina and Costa Rica--that voted for the resolution (see NotiCen, 2001-05-03).

This year, the Czech Foreign Ministry made it clear that it would not again sponsor the anti-Cuban resolution. Instead, Czech diplomats traveled to Chile, Peru, and Mexico looking for one of Cuba's neighbors to take the lead at Geneva.

Cuban officials said Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda showed a draft resolution he considered positive to Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. The subject of Geneva came up during conversations between President Fidel Castro and Mexican President Vicente Fox during the latter's visit to Havana in February. According to Castro's account, he criticized US maneuvers to line up support for the 2002 resolution so strongly that Fox decided Mexico would not sponsor even the "positive" resolution.

Turning to Peru, President George W. Bush discussed the subject during his...

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