O ESTADO DE S.PAULO (São Paulo, Brazil) issues today an interview by Elizardo Sánchez in which he declares that it's time Brazil honored the Declaration of Viña del Mar.
In these terms, therefore, he does not say Brazil is in fault, by indicates Brazil is not doing what it should.
The president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation also points out that the 'non intervention' clause under which Brazil has justified its inertia is far outdated.
The Brazilian newspaper also quotes president Dilma Rousseff, as she says she can't see "an emergency situation in Cuba" and that those who throw stones live under glass ceilings", the latter statement prone to misunderstanding as translated into English. By "glass ceiling' the president of Brazil does not mean the economic or sociological concepts one can find in, e.g., Wikipedia. She literally refers to ceilings that can be broken because they are made of glass, thus a totally different idea than that embodied in the popular glass-ceiling concept elsewhere.
Bloomberg smartly avoids that source of confusion by quoting Dilma as saying, 'He who throws the first stone has a roof made of glass.'
Anyhow that is how Dilma Rousseff excuses herself for not 'interferring' with human rights in Cuba: by alledging that stones could break one's own ceiling - and she admits, "we have our own".
Quoting Elizardo in interview to newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo, 1.2.2012: (translated from Portuguese into English by the editor, Mariangela Pedro)
If millions of Cubans intend to leave the country, it is because they feel they cann't rely the least on room for freedom and happiness around here.
Fragments of the Declaration of Viña del Mar can be found here.
