OAS Rights Commission Ignores Elephant in the Room

The Organization of American States’ Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) published a statement last week expressing “concern over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Cuba.”

Though the commission recognizes that deteriorating conditions are “linked to a sharp reduction in fuel supplies to the island,” it places the blame for the crisis squarely on the Cuban government.

The “primary responsibility for the well-being of the Cuban population lies with the Cuban State itself, whose restrictive economic policies and single-party system are the structural causes of the crisis,” according to the IACHR.

The statement does not once mention the U.S. oil blockade or U.S. sanctions.

That omission may have to do with Rosa María Payá, a newly elected Cuban-American pro-Trump member of the commission who has a history of endorsing the very U.S. policies at the root of Cuba’s economic crisis.

Last year, Payá became the U.S. representative at the IACHR despite concernsfrom an independent panel of her “conflicts of interest” and lack of knowledge about human rights law.

The Rubio-led State Department lobbied hard for Payá’s election into the organization.

Payá runs Cuba Decide, which is backed by groups bankrolled by the U.S. government. She has also been a vocal supporter of Washington’s sanctionsagainst Cuba, which have contributed to shortages in food, medicine and electricity on the island.

Payá has maintained cozy relations with right-wing leaders like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump. In 2020, Payá praised then de facto Bolivian president Jeanine Áñez (now in prison for leading a coup) weeks after her government committed massacres that were condemned by the IACHR.