Vol. 71/No. 19      May 14, 2007

Bildt singled out the governments of Sudan, Myanmar, the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea, Belarus, Cuba, Uzbekistan, and Iran as being “among those that very clearly need to be addressed by this Council.”

He criticized the governments of Iran, Iraq, and, in particular, China for using the death penalty, without mentioning the United States, where capital punishment is used extensively. He then attacked Sri Lanka's government for “extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary executions,” but didn’t mention that Swedish troops in Afghanistan recently did just that on orders from the Swedish military command (see article in May 7 Militant).

“This morning we heard in shock the statement of the representative of the kingdom of Sweden,” Reyes said. “The confrontational and arrogant nature of his speech took us back to the not-too-glorious days of Swedish imperialism, which filled with blood and pain its neighboring countries, several of whom were subjected to colonial slavery under Sweden’s conquering boot.”

“The cynicism, hypocrisy, and complicity of his [Bildt’s] words is astonishing," Reyes continued. "How can one speak about human rights without mentioning the torture center in Guantánamo? How can one do so without referring to the war crimes being carried out by the U.S. occupiers in Iraq? How can one speak in this room about human rights and not mention the secret flights and the ghost torture centers established in several European countries?…. A process and practice that Sweden no doubt has been part of.”

On Dec. 18, 2001, two Egyptian men, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammad El Zari, were picked up by Swedish police and secretly deported to Egypt under dehumanizing conditions on orders from the CIA. Both were then imprisoned and reportedly subjected to torture in Egypt.

Reyes also pointed to widespread racism and discrimination against immigrants and other national minorities in Sweden. Cuba, unlike the Swedish government, he said, does not try “to just retain in its country those whose skin color and hair color would fit in better with the racial patterns of the former Viking conquerors.”

Unemployment among immigrants in Sweden is 12 percent, compared to 5 percent for the population as a whole.

The exchange between Bildt and Reyes made the headlines here March 20, one and a half weeks after it happened. One TV station labeled Reyes's remarks “The hate attack against Sweden.” The conservative daily Svenska Dagbladet said it reflected a “diplomatic crisis with Cuba,” and quoted Bildt accusing Havana of opening diplomatic mail to the Swedish embassy in Cuba. The liberal daily Dagen Nyheter wrote, “Sweden is accused of ethnic cleansing,” while the social democratic Aftonbladet quipped, “Carl Bildt in wild fight with Cuba.” None of these papers or TV channels reported Reyes's name correctly.

“It’s a joy to hear a representative of revolutionary Cuba describe the rulers of Sweden in those terms and speak out against imperial arrogance,” said Anita Östling of the Communist League in Sweden, speaking at a Militant Labor Forum here April 6. “The Cuban compañero spoke for all oppressed nations, and in the interests of the working people of Sweden and the world.”
 
 
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