The U.N.’s Apologist for Dictators Michelle Bachelet, the high commissioner for human rights, cares little about rights. By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Humanitarians were up in arms last month when Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, came away from a China tour spouting Beijing propaganda.
For those who fight for liberty in Cuba, the high commissioner’s performance was no surprise. During the Cold War she was on the side of the Soviets, and she’s a lifelong admirer of the Cuban revolution. Let’s face it: Human rights are not her thing.
According to Axios, the 70-year-old Ms. Bachelet “used Chinese government talking points to frame her remarks” on the situation in Xinjiang, where the regime has detained some one million Uyghurs and other minorities. Ms. Bachelet described China’s policies “as a form of ‘counter terrorism’ intended to combat ‘violent acts of extremism.’ She also referred to mass detention facilities as ‘vocational and educational training centers,’ the government’s euphemism for the camps,” Axios reported.
China seized on Ms. Bachelet’s words to its own advantage, with the consul general in Kolkata tweeting that Beijing was “not only vindicated, but justified” after the U.N. visit.
Axios reported that human-rights lawyer and Yale law fellow Rayhan Asat, whose brother is detained, called the high commissioner’s trip “the ultimate betrayal.” Advocacy groups denounced her willingness to allow China to dictate where she went and what she saw and are calling for her resignation.
It wouldn’t be the first time Ms. Bachelet sided with totalitarians. The Chilean socialist, who chose to live in East Germany from 1975-79 and has described it as a “beautiful” experience, is a devoted disciple of the late Fidel Castro. In 2009 she made a pilgrimage to Cuba to sit at the feet of the aging tyrant. In 2016 when he died, she tweeted that he had been “a leader for dignity and social justice in Cuba and Latin America.”
In nearly four years in the top job for human rights at the U.N., her rare protests against the Cuban regime have been halfhearted at best. Take her statement issued after the July 11-12, 2021, uprising against the police state. The internet was full of cellphone videos of unarmed civilians being beaten and fired on in cities and towns across the island by state security and paramilitaries. Yet Ms. Bachelet called the dictatorship’s actions an “alleged use of excessive force.” Thousands were carted off to jail while friends and family searched frantically for them. Ms. Bachelet said some detainees were “allegedly held incommunicado.” She suggested “dialogue” between the dictatorship and the powerless population.
While she called for the release of the detained she also laid blame on U.S. sanctions for the island’s hardship, a line right out of the regime playbook. Yet she never mentioned Cuba’s internal blockade of its own people—the cause of the dire poverty. This is no minor point. Rather, it exposes her priorities.
The dictatorship is a symbol of anti-American success because it has survived decades of U.S. opposition. In the eyes of the international left, this makes it heroic and calls for it to be protected at all costs. Brave nonconformists across Cuban civil society, whom the regime is determined to extirpate, are merely collateral damage in a wider war against the values of the West.
Any day now Havana is expected to announce verdicts in the closed-door trials of performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and rapper Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo. The two men are part of Havana’s San Isidro Movement, founded to resist peacefully the government’s censorship of the arts.
Mr. Castillo is a co-author of the dissident anthem “Patria y Vida,” which won two Latin Grammys in November. He was unable to accept the awards in Las Vegas because he’s been in jail in Cuba for more than a year. Mr. Otero Alcántara, arbitrarily arrested numerous times, has been in jail since July. Their trials ended in May. Mr. Castillo faces up to 10 years in prison. Mr. Otero Alcántara could get a sentence of seven years.
Hundreds more participants in last year’s protests are languishing in Cuban dungeons for such crimes as disrespect, public disorder and disobedience. The nongovernmental organization Cubalex has documented the arrest of 1,477 people following the July marches and says that 729 of those remain in prison. Some are minors. Of the 714 no longer behind bars, not all are free. Some are out on bail or under house arrest. The whereabouts of 34 people that were detained are unknown.
Two months after the uprising a global update on human rights, issued by Ms. Bachelet’s office, omitted Cuba. Cubalex observed in a tweet that “there was not a single mention of what is happening today on the island: the repression, the health crisis, the food crisis, the constant violations” of human rights.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the high commissioner’s sympathies lie with the oppressors, whether in Cuba or in China. If the U.N. seeks credibility, Michelle Bachelet needs to go.
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