Last Thursday the United Nations Human Rights Commission passed a resolution hitting the lack of human rights in dictator Fidel Castro's Communist paradise of Cuba.
It asked Cuba to allow UN special envoy, French magistrate Christine Chanet, to visit and investigate first hand human-rights infractions against its own people.
Castro has repeatedly refused to allow a UN envoy to enter his police state.Despite this, Chanet's latest report condemned Cuba's flagrant flouting of human rights.
She noted the cases of 61 Cuban human rights advocates that Castro sentenced to up to 28 years in closed trials two years ago. At present, there are more than 300 political prisoners rotting in jails.
The 61 were part of 75 who dared to ask the regime finally to hold free elections and permit free speech -- and were branded American "agents." They were "dangerous" types like poets, librarians, doctors and independent journalists. Only 14 have been released -- mostly for failing health.
It was the sixth successive year in which the 53-state UN commission passed a resolution condemning the lack of human rights -- free speech, free elections, freedom of assembly, a free media, etc.
"The Cuban government has failed to take the steps that would guarantee its own people the most basic human rights," said U.S. delegation member Lino Piedra.
"Instead they have persisted in imposing a totalitarian state that deprives the people of the right of expressing dissent without incurring a decades-long prison sentence," he said.
As usual, the Cuban delegate blasted the resolution as "a sick obsession of successive U.S. administrations."
By the way, Castro still refuses to allow the International Red Cross to enter his "socialist paradise" to inspect conditions. For instance, prisoners were killed in two recent prison riots, but the news has been suppressed by the regime.
'SUBHUMAN CONDITIONS'
"There is much discontent in the prisons, above all in the high security ones, due to the subhuman conditions and bad food," said Elizardo Sanchez, Cuban human rights advocate.
I mention these developments because Canada has had a long love affair with the romantic side of Fidel, his convenient martyr Che Guevara and their revolution.
Canadian governments -- mostly Liberal -- have always kept diplomatic and trade relations and sent aid. Especially tourists and dollars.
Many tourists have returned time and again, impressed with the cheap, all-inclusive packages. And others have even tried to help the hard-pressed Cuban people, who try to live on a $15-a-month government payment.
One Canadian who has been doing just that for the past seven years is Toronto-area resident Don Bilodeau. He went as a tourist, married a Cuban nurse, and has been doing yeoman service for years bringing much-needed aid worth millions . He's spent an estimated $100,000 of his own money.
He and his cohorts have brought in medical supplies such as badly needed medicines, vitamins, wheelchairs, doctors' and nurses' "scrubs," crutches, walkers, canes, etc. Plus items like bicycles, baseball equipment, soccer balls and basketballs.
"But the one thing I have always insisted is that I be present when the items are handed over to the Cuban people. I don't want it ending up in the black market," he said last week.
And there's the rub. Despite his best efforts, he's had numerous run-ins with Cuban immigration authorities -- but especially customs officials who fined him and grabbed the much-needed supplies.
Bilodeau recounted several instances where Cuban customs officials promised he'd be present when his supplies were being unloaded -- and then failed to notify him.
Earlier this month he had an ugly experience in which he felt doublecrossed when he was fined for overweight on the supplies he was carrying. He had enough and came home with the Cuban airline holding his passport on the flight.
His opinion: "If Canada stopped supporting such an evil, crooked government, the country would collapse. People would be free and they would be the richest country in the Caribbean."
I'm not sure if Canada carries such weight, but our decades of Castro-backing governments have certainly helped to keep him in power.
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