By Francisco Acevedo
HAVANA TIMES – The intervention of Cuban dissident Rosa María Paya at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, was the most important event in the political arena related to this wonderful island this week.
First of all, it is rare for a human rights activist to reach that stage because there is much behind-the-scenes work with diplomats loyal to the Cuban regime sabotaging any of these attempts.
However, the founder of the dissident platform Cuba Decide and daughter of the late opposition leader Oswaldo Paya managed to deliver her message and it was quite forceful because she called for the expulsion of the country, which was re-elected in October for the sixth time as a member of that body.
Then came the usual. The envoy of the moment, in this case the deputy representative of Cuba to the United Nations, Yusnier Romero Puentes, attacked her, but not her message, with the same story that she receives money to do what she does, and it is logical because nothing is free, just as he also gets paid. The difference is that he is paid to hide how human rights are violated, and she is paid to defend them.
What for the rest of the world is a merit, for the dictatorship is a crime, and even then not a word was said to deny what she exposed, but from the outset that is impossible because what that charlatan said was written in Havana and was not logically based on what she had exposed minutes before.
Paya, thanks to the international NGO UNWatch yielding her speaking time, denounced the systematic violations of fundamental rights taking place on the island, and requested to be treated the same as Russia, which was indeed vetoed from the organization after invading Ukraine.
“Today we officially call for the same to be done with Cuba,” the activist requested, and then