Nominations for membership to the committee are made by regional groups. There were four nominations made for three seats allotted to the Western Europe and Others Group--the United States, France, Austria, and Sweden. France came in first with 52 votes while the United States came in last with 29. Austria received 41 votes and Sweden 32. The U.S. government had held a seat on the body since the founding of the United Nations in 1947.

In the weeks leading up to the vote, as it has done for years, Washington, under the guise of "human rights," had used the commission to further its attacks on Cuba and China by pursuing resolutions against the two governments. The U.S. rulers have also recently opposed a commission vote blaming Israel for the current war against the Palestinian people.

Reaction by the Bush administration and the capitalist media was immediate and sharp, particularly against Washington's European allies. Statements by administration officials and coverage of the vote in the big-business media assumed that the U.S. government somehow should have a right to a permanent seat on the commission. In an interview with the New York Times May 8, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "One thing I can guarantee you is that we will be back on it next year."

Conservative commentator William Safire titled his May 7 column "Slavery Triumphs," and called on Powell to find out why 14 of the countries Washington was counting on for support in the vote ended up not casting a ballot for Washington.

The Wall Street Journal editorial the same day, titled "Tyrants Take Over," railed that "it has come to pass that the torments of the world's most unfortunate men, women, and children will be monitored not by the U.S., but by the likes of Sudan, China, Libya, Algeria, Syria, Vietnam and Cuba," which the Journal editors termed the UN "abusers' bloc." The Journal also took to task "the Western Europeans, who offered three candidates in addition to the U.S. for the three seats allocated to the West. The European Union should have persuaded one of them to stand aside."

The editors went on to complain that the Chinese and Cuban governments were "beating the 'anyone but America' drum," which resulted, they said, in the poor showing for the United States. And they asked, "Why is the U.N. voting in secret in the first place?"

The Journal called on Congress to expedite the stalled confirmation of John Negroponte for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Negroponte served as U.S. ambassador to Honduras during the U.S.-backed contra war in the 1980s aimed at overturning the workers and farmers government in Nicaragua.

In a Washington Post article, called "Blind-Sided by Allies,'" Michael Kelly said, "America's traditional allies joined forces with America's traditional enemies to bash America a good and solid one." He called the vote "the opening round of...a new period of official anti-Americanism." Kelly called Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts a "partisan opportunist" for his remark that the vote reflected a sense among many nations that there is "a lack of a sense of honesty" in the U.S. government.

The Post also reprinted a political cartoon from the Portland Oregonian portraying a pitchfork- and hatchet-wielding lynch mob outside the UN headquarters preparing to burn at the stake a man dressed in the U.S. flag motif. The mob is made of up racist caricatures of an Islamic cleric in a skullcap, an Arab sheik, as well as Cuban president Fidel Castro. A UN official is saying to the bound American, "Oh...about your dues...is this a bad time?"

Some members of Congress called for a freeze on payment of $826 million in back dues the United States owes to the United Nations. Republican Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, and Tom Lantos, ranking Democrat on the committee, proposed as a compromise withholding $244 million until the United States is returned to the commission.

In Geneva, where the UN Human Rights Commission was meeting, U.S. officials had pressed for a vote to condemn China for human rights violations, but the motion failed by a 23-17 margin. Washington has also taken issue with some of the European powers for their approach to relations with Russia, north Korea, and Cuba.

Washington had also engineered a 22-to-20 vote April 18 on a resolution formally proposed by representatives of the Czech Republic condemning Cuba for supposed human rights violations. The vote coincided with the 40th anniversary of the U.S.-backed mercenary invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, a military assault that was routed in less than three days by Cuba's revolutionary militias, police, and armed forces.

Cuban foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque was present for the vote, and countered that Cuba "never has used torture or political assassination, nor could it be accused of acting with repression against people in the streets." In an earlier address to the commission, Pérez asked the United States to explain "why they vote against considering famine--currently affecting nearly 1 billion people--as an outrage and a violation of human dignity" and why "they also refuse to condemn the flagrant, large-scale human rights violations committed by the Israeli army against the courageous Palestinian people?"

Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban parliament, said the resolution "doesn't interest me--from top to bottom it's garbage." When asked whether the mass demonstrations in Cuba supporting the revolution are a signal for the new U.S. president, Alarcón replied, "I'm not sure he understands any message, but it doesn't matter....what awaits them is one Girón after another," he said, referring to the beach where the mercenary force was decisively defeated in 1961. "They will be forced to understand one day...as a result of the pressure that the people of the United States will put on them."

Washington was also not reelected to the International Narcotics Control Board, a vote also held by secret ballot.  
 
 
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