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[GENEVA, 20 June 2006] - Cuba and the United States accused each other of violations on Tuesday as the gloves came off on the second day of a new UN human rights forum intended to rise above finger-pointing. Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque accused the United States of running a "concentration camp" at its Guantanamo naval base on Cuba, where some 460 terror suspects are being held. Perez said in a speech that his country would "speak out for the rights of American people" as the United States does not have a seat on the 47-member UN Human Rights Council. But his remarks drew a sharp rebuke from the US observer delegation for what it called Cuba's "gratuitous and unfounded attacks" against the United States. "The American people need no one else to speak for them, particularly officials of an autocratic government," US political counsellor Velia De Pirro said in a right of reply to the remarks from the communist country's representative. The US delegate noted that Cuba, like other states to win election to the new human rights body, had pledged to promote human rights both in its territory and elsewhere. "Cuba, rather than explain how it intends to comply with its pledge, chose instead to engage in gratuitous and unfounded attacks against the United States," De Pirro said. The new Geneva forum, which replaces the widely discredited UN Human Rights Commission, opened its first session on Monday amid calls by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others to avoid the finger-pointing and political point-scoring of old. The United States chose not to stand for election to the UN watchdog, saying that not enough had been done to keep out states known to abuse human rights. Much of the initial two-week session will be spent planning future work. Unlike the commission, which met annually, the council will meet at least three times a year. POLITICAL CONFRONTATION China's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi told the council to avoid the "political confrontation that led to the credibility crisis of the Commission on Human Rights." It also needed to give more weight to economic, social and cultural rights because for many people in the developing world their rights were "curtailed by poverty, disease and environmental degradation," he said. Akiko Yamanaka, Japan's vice minister for foreign affairs, said that the Council's credibility would hinge on whether it could pave the way for resolving grave human rights violations. Serious violations include North Korea, which has admitted that it abducted Japanese citizens, she said. "This abduction issue not only remains unresolved for Japan, but also has an international dimension which extends to multiple countries," Yamanaka said. North Korea's human rights delegate Choe Myong Nam took the floor to say that the abduction issue had been fully resolved, but Japan continued to raise it as part of a "cunning plot". Japan's main duty was to settle its own "crimes against humanity" during World War Two which were never settled - including the abduction of 8.4 million people, the "genocidal killing" of one million people, and sexual slavery of 200,000 women and girls by the army - according to Pyongyang's envoy. Further information Tuesday's opening of the new UN Human Rights Council inspires little hope that much will change. It was bad enough that Cuba was elected to the panel along with other serial violators that discredited the UN's old human-rights body. The Cuban foreign minister only added to the injury by insulting the United States in his first remarks. Some things just never change. Cuba should be judged by its deeds, not its words. No excuse changes the fact that the same dictator has ruled the island for 47 years. That Cuba landed a seat on the council doesn't absolve this tyrant of his systematic denial of basic liberties to 11 million people. Let's hope others on the council stop Cuba and fellow abusers from hijacking the mission to protect and promote human rights. "Today is a particularly symbolic day. Cuba is a founding member of the Human Rights Council and the United States is not. Cuba was elected with the overwhelming support of 135 countries, more than two-thirds of the United Nations General Assembly, while the United States did not even dare to run as a candidate. Cuba relied on the secret vote for the same reasons that the United States was afraid of it. Cuba’s election epitomizes the victory of principles and truth; it stands as recognition of the value of our resilience. The absence of the United States is the defeat of lies; it is the moral punishment for the haughtiness of an empire. The election entailed a demanding assessment. Each one got what they deserved. Cuba was rewarded and the United States was punished. Each one had its history and the voting countries were well aware of it. The African countries recalled that over 2,000 Cuban fighters had shed their generous blood in the struggle against the outrageous Apartheid regime, which the United States supported and furnished with weapons, even nuclear ones. The election for Cuba came at a moment in which nearly 30,000 Cuban doctors were saving lives and alleviating the pain in 70 countries, while the United States reached that stage with 150,000 invading soldiers, sent to kill and die in an unjust and illegal war. The election for Cuba came with more than 300,000 patients from 26 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean who were recovering their eyesight thanks to the cost-free surgeries performed by Cuban eye specialists. It came for the United States with over 100,000 civilians murdered and 2,500 American youths dead in a war concocted to steal a country’s oil and give away sumptuous contracts to a group of cronies of the President of the world’s sole superpower. The election for Cuba came with more than 25,000 youths from 120 Third World countries studying in its universities and colleges free of charge. It came for the United States with a concentration camp in Guantánamo, where prisoners are subjected to torture and where the official statement of the prison wardens was that the suicide of three human beings “is not an act of despair but an act of war and propaganda.” The election for Cuba came with its airplanes carrying Cuban medical doctors and field hospitals to places where there had been natural disasters or epidemics. It came for the United States with its aircraft secretly carrying drugged and handcuffed prisoners from one jail to another. The election for Cuba came with its proclamation of the prevalence of lawfulness over force, defending the United Nations Charter, demanding and fighting for a better world. It came for the United States with its proclamation of “if you are not on our side, you are against us.” The election for Cuba came with its proposal of setting aside the trillion US dollars annually spent on weapons to fight off the yearly death of preventable causes of 11 million children under the age of five years and 600,000 poor women at childbirth. In the meantime, it came for the United States with its proclamation of its right to bomb and “pre-emptively” wipe out what it scornfully called “any dark corners of the world” if its designs were not obeyed. That included the city of The Hague, if there were any attempts to prosecute an American soldier at the International Criminal Court. While Cuba defended the rights of the Palestinian people, the United States was the main pillar behind Israel’s crimes and atrocities. While under the striking force of Hurricane Katrina the US Government abandoned hundreds of thousands of people to their luck, most of them black and poor, Cuba immediately offered to send 1,100 doctors, who could have saved lives and alleviated their suffering. I could go on and on listing reasons until tomorrow. I just want to add that it is the Government of the United States, not its people, which does not have a seat today as a member of the Council. The American people will be represented in the others, including Cuba’s seat. Our delegation will also speak out for the rights of the American people and, particularly, for the rights of its most discriminated and excluded sectors."