October 28, 2007
El che lives at the UN
In spirit that is, and he's going to visit Cuba. It's been announced that UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler will visit Cuba.
Ziegler, a former Swiss Social Democratic parliamentarian, says that his invitation is "a signal that Cuba is opening up to collaboration with the UN" and wants to cooperate actively with the new UN Human Rights Council."
No doubt that is just the beginning of the praise for Cuba we'll be hearing from the Rapporteur. Keep in mind that castro and his buddy Muammar Kadhafi nominated Ziegler for his post. A political radical, this is the opportunity he's been waiting for since his youth, when he met his idol, che.
In France and Switzerland, Jean Ziegler is known as a crusader against the horrors of capitalism. Some thirty years ago, he befriended che guevara in one of Genevas posh international hotels, the type of place where revolutionaries meet. Mr. Ziegler was indeed eager to join the world revolution, but his Argentine idol advised him to stay right there, in the belly of the capitalist beast, there where he could do the most good (or, damage, that is). Consequently, Mr Ziegler didnt spend his whole time in Geneva. He left from time to time, travelling extensively in the Communist world. Usually he was a guest of one of the totalitarian rulers of the time and/or their cronies. In return for their hospitality, Mr. Ziegler praised their charm and charisma. Thus he went to Hanoi during the '80s, where he heaped praise upon General Vo Nguyen Giap and had kind words for Ho Chi Minh with whom he spent unforgettable moments drinking tea under a golden sun. The fact that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were at this time desperately trying to escape their country in search of freedom seems not to have registered, or was not worthy of consideration. Indeed, it would be hard to find an intellectual more stained by collaboration with evil regimes in the 20th century than Mr. Ziegler, but this has not prevented many Swiss intellectuals from hailing him as a beacon of freedom in the midst of the capitalist nightmare. In sum, he is is a case in point of a phenomenon French author Alain Minc recently identified: Switzerland is a land of extremes, not only in conformism but also in revolutionary outbursts from leftist luminaries.
A notorious anti-Semite, Ziegler never met a tyrant he didn't love, in fact he rewards them in any way he is able.
In 1989, Ziegler was one of a group of self-described "intellectuals and progressive militants" who gathered in Tripoli to announce the launching of the annual "Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize," awarded by the government of Libya. Ziegler explained that the purpose of the Qaddafi prize was to counterbalance the Nobel prize, which, he said, constituted a "perpetual humiliation to the Third World."Winners of the Qaddafi prize have included fidel castro, louis farrakhan, and recently Venezuela's hugo chávez. When no individual of such luminous human rights credentials has presented himself, the award has gone to collectivities. In 1996, it went to a female member of the Cuban Communist party's central committee, a leader of a Ba'ath party women's organization in Saddam's Iraq, and a couple of other "symbols of women's struggle for freedom." In 1990, it went to the "Stone Throwing Children of Occupied Palestine" and in 1991 to the "Red Indians." In 2002, the awardees were "13 intellectual and literature personalities," of whom the most notable were the French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy and (you guessed it) Jean Ziegler.
From Cuba, "Ziegler will learn about several projects and programs underway on the island to guarantee food for all Cuban citizens and to keep advancing the construction of an increasingly fair society, despite the difficulties Cuba faced under the economic, commercial and financial war imposed on the country by Washington."
I'm sure he'll get the 1st class tour, and write accordingly. Expect Ziegler to: legitimize raul castro's position as leader of Cuba; issue a report on Cuba that will make moot the fact that he's the first UN Rapporteur into Cuba; and add fuel to the international condemnation of U.S. policy vis á vie Cuba.
For more, click here, here, and here.
Posted by Ziva at October 28, 2007 09:21 PM
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Comments
CUBA necesita comida - la pregunta es - QUIEN PAGA por la comida? -S-
Posted by: Dr.Shalit ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.babalublog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 28, 2007 10:17 PM
Caca de toro - CUBA tiene una problema. La problema se llama CASTRO! -S-
Posted by: Dr.Shalit at October 28, 2007 10:29 PM
The UN has no credibility. It lost it long time ago. Just like the New York Times, it's only worth is with its crowd. The NYT crowd buys the paper, the UN fans, opportunists and useful idiots buys into its "importance."
Posted by: rmartel at October 28, 2007 10:31 PM
OK Ziva -
Back to "Ingles" - so - there is a plan to make sure all of the inhabitants of CUBA are well fed. I am, on principle happy for this. Well fed people are generally healthier than Poorly Fed People. Now, how does RAUL propose to pay for this in the short term, ie. the time period which keeps him in power and wealthy? Nobody knows!
YO RAUL -
TRY CAPITALISM - WORKS EVERY TIME IT'S BEEN TRIED.
-S-
Posted by: Dr.Shalit at October 28, 2007 10:39 PM
OH and Raul -
Are those HAIER refrigerators that all y'all are selling on the installment (vig) plan to Cuban citizens - HECHO en CHINA o HECHO en la Carolina del Sur? Por favor RAUL - digame!
-S-
Posted by: Dr.Shalit at October 28, 2007 10:47 PM
Oh - And RAUL -
For a mere 3.3 BILLION Pesos Convertibles every person on the island could have a NEW COMPUTER. A bit minimal on programs - but then again there is the INTERNET and Free Downloads. Tiene vd. una problema con eso? Y,si vd. lo tiene una problema, PORQUE? -S-
Posted by: Dr.Shalit at October 28, 2007 10:58 PM
Dr. Shalit, did you read the post? What gives you the idea that this useful idiot will in anyway increase food rations to Cubans? He´s just going to rubber stamp the regime, cite the free education, the health care, the urban organic gargening the Cuban media loves to write about, etc. etc. etc. We know the UN is a nothing but a useless den of thieves, but not everyone thinks that way. Castroites use the fact that Cuba is on the Humnan Rights commission as proof that there are no human rights problems in Cuba except at Guantanamo. They buy the party line, and defend it.
Posted by: Ziva at October 28, 2007 11:11 PM
Is it possible to invade the UN? Can we offer it in exchange for some hostages somewhere? It serves no purpose to anyone, especially us.
Posted by: Claudia at October 28, 2007 11:56 PM
Excellent post Ziva. Great job in exposing this Ziegler character.
Posted by: albertodelacruz at October 29, 2007 06:47 AM
Great. Another brazenly biased bastard in a job he should never have gotten. I know it's par for the course, but it's amazing how careless the UN is about maintaining even a tolerable semblance of propriety.
Posted by: asombra at October 29, 2007 10:48 AM
El sociólogo suizo Jean Ziegler, relator especial del recién creado Consejo de Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas, ha confirmado en Ginebra que visitará Cuba el próximo 28 de Octubre en respuesta a una invitación del gobierno de Cuba.
El propio Ziegler se mostró efusivo. “Saludo la invitación, porque demuestra que Cuba se está abriendo al diálogo con el Consejo de Derechos Humanos”, afirmó el relator de la ONU.
Y no se trataba de que el Sr. Ziegler premonitoriamente quizo ver en el gesto de La Habana, lo que podría ser interpretado como una primera señal de "flexibilidad" y "cambio", en el comportamiento del régimen en relación a su tradicional actitud de negarse a ser "inspeccionado", "monitoreado" o "escudriñado" por los organismos internacionales creados para velar por el respeto a los derechos humanos.
Una investigación de La Nueva Cuba sobre los antecedentes del relator Jean Ziegler pronto arrojaba evidencias del verdadero perfil del "sociólogo" suizo, sus motivaciones, y los compromisos políticos que ha mantenido por casi medio siglo. Sencillamente, Ziegler es incapaz de presentar un reporte imparcial y creíble sobre su visita a la Isla.
¿Por qué? Porque Jean Ziegler recibió desde bien temprano la influencia de la revolución cubana a la que se suscribió y que indudablemente influyó en sus actuaciones posteriores. Su vínculo con el régimen de La Habana va más allá de un mero postulado teórico. Sus lealtades no se limitan a la pasión por la idea sino que siempre han estado en Ziegler vinculadas consecuentemente a la "praxis".
Sus propias palabras son testimonio del carácter de su compromiso con el régimen de Fidel Castro:
“Conocí al Che en Cuba. Y cuando la última vez, de paso en Ginebra donde residió, fui a verlo y le pedí una autorización para emigrar a Cuba, desde la cumbre de la colina del Grand-Saconnex me mostró la ciudad de Ginebra y me dijo: ‘¿Ves esta ciudad? Aquí está el cerebro del monstruo, es aquí donde debes luchar’. Hoy sé que el Che tenía razón. Que me opuso una negativa con su voz irónica y cálida por amistad y por su exacto conocimiento de la estrategia del combate.”
Jean Ziegler es conocido por ser un agitador consumado, subversivo, abiertamente provocador, excesivo, pero sobre todo se trata de un hombre comprometido con la dictadura cubana. Personalidad de izquierda, sus posiciones y su voluntad de informar (o de desinformar, según algunos) sobre temas espinosos le acarrean numerosas críticas. Sus escritos le causan muchos pleitos por difamación. Sus juicios, criterios, percepciones en relación a la situación de los derechos humanos en Cuba sólo pueden ser prejuiciados.
La invitación a Jean Ziegler por parte del régimen cubano, no es por supuesto ni una casualidad, ni un gesto de flexibilidad, es sencillamente parte de una burda treta de la que pareciera participar, con pareja desverguenza, el propio Consejo de Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas.
Si ese Consejo aspirara al respeto y a la credibilidad internacional jamás se hubiera prestado a una coartada tan descarnadamente cómplicitada.
Sin importar lo amoral de esta emboscada a la decencia, en La Habana el jacobino Ziegler podrá de seguro recorrer, con la pasión de los inquisidores, de los verdugos nazis, los paredones de fusilamiento del Castrismo, y de seguro conmovido por un inevitable tremor de pie a cabeza, reanudará una vez más su compromiso con la dictadura más antigua del planeta.
La visita del profesor, sociólogo y fidelista, devenido en relator, quebrantará irreparablemente la credibilidad del nuevo Consejo de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas.
Posted by: Abajofidel at October 29, 2007 12:22 PM
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