Havana
Cuba this week rejected a call to let a United Nations envoy investigate its treatment of dissidents. Cuba’s ambassador to the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission in Geneva dismissed the four Latin American nations that proposed the visit as “disgusting lackeys” that had bowed to “shameful” pressure from the U.S. Bush administration officials have blasted Cuban leader Fidel Castro for the recent arrests of 75 dissidents. The New York Times reported that the Bush administration was considering tightening trade sanctions against the Caribbean nation as punishment for the crackdown. The harshest measure under consideration is a ban on cash transfers from exiles to their families in Cuba, which could cost Cuba $1 billion annually.
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