Gas March 13, (Reuter): The United Nations Human Rights Commission ends one of its most politically charged annual sessions today after condemning Chile, Iran and Afghanistan.
The 43nation Commission renewed the mandates of special investigators to look into allegations of murder and torture by those governments, as well as in El Salvador and Guatemala.
The United States attacked.
Cuban President Fidel Castro at the six week session, alleging his jails held up to 15,000 political prisoners. Many delegates privately said the campaign was motivated by East West rivalry.
The Commission narrowly shelved the U.S. motion by one vote an embarrassing defeat for Vernon Walters, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations who had pleaded for support.
Robert Wallach, U.S. Ambassador to the talks, said, “The real losers are Cuba’s political prisoners and the United Nations”.
Delegates agreed that the announcement here by Afghan Foreign Minister Abdul Wakil that a U.N. special reporter would be allowed to enter his country to investigate allegations of murder and torture was a major achievement.
In the last three years, the Moscow backed communist authorities in Kabul have refused to allow the investigator, Austrian Felix Ermacora, into the country.
Ermacora’s previous reports alleging murder and torture by Afghan and “foreign troops” were based on interviews with Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 20, 1987
