Cuba lashes out at US, Europe over HR, wars

GENEVA (Reuters/AFP) - Cuba on Wednesday accused the United States, whose Democratic administration has been seeking to ease long-term restrictions on links with Havana, of stepping up subversion against the communist-ruled island.
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla also lashed out at the West in general for creating a global economic system bringing the death of millions in poor countries and for launching bloody wars to seize control of energy resources.
Dubbing Washingtons long economic blockade as genocide, he told the United Nations Human Rights Council: The US policy against Cuba that the government of President (Barack) Obama has kept unchanged is taking a toll on the lives of Cubans.
And he said the hunger-strike death in a Cuban jail last week of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who supporters say was a political prisoner and Cuba argues was a common criminal, had sparked a new escalation of subversion against the island.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed deep regrets over the death and said Zapata was imprisoned for speaking his mind. Other US politicians have fiercely condemned Havana.
Political experts in the United States and Europe say the affair has struck a blow against hopes for near-term improvement in US-Cuba - and European Union-Cuba - relations.
The vehemence of Rodriguezs speech to the 47-nation council suggested that Havana had a similar view, although it was reported this week to be seeking to persuade foreign firms to keep doing business with Cuba.
Rodriguez accused the West of appointing itself as the worlds human rights watchdog but was responsible for systematic and flagrant rights abuses.
They are the ones who bear responsibility for the present international economic order that silently murders tens of millions of human beings who fall victims of starvation, poverty and preventable and curable diseases, he said.
The US and its European allies resorted to the manipulation of terrorism to launch the wars whose aim was to control and conquer the energy resources of Iraq and Afghanistan, he added.
Rodriguez accused the US in front of the UN Human Rights Council of helping to cause the death of a top dissident who died in Havana last month while on a hunger strike in prison.
Without mentioning Orlando Zapata by name, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla told the council in Geneva that in order to achieve false political ends, he was hastened towards death despite careful medical care.
Zapata died on February 23, two and a half months into a hunger strike.
A new subversive escalation, with large media coverage, has been launched against Cuba, Rodriguez said.
They put forward mercenaries claiming they are patriots, agents in Cuba paid by the United States saying they are dissidents.
The powerful machinery of the empire (the United States) does not hesitate to use a habitual criminal, sentenced in a normal court for ordinary crimes and then recruited in prison, and put him forward as a fighter for human rights, Rodriguez said.
The minister said the dead hunger striker was another victim of the US subversive policy towards Cuba which President (Barack) Obama has not changed.