Cuba to allow UN human rights monitoring

(Reuters): Cuba said on Monday it will accept regular UN monitoring of its human rights record from 2009, even as its plainclothes police broke up a small demonstration marking International Human Rights Day. Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque announced Cuba will sign the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and a similar pact on economic and social rights by March next year. Havana has long refused to sign the pacts adopted in 1976 at the height of the Cold War. He said Cuba would open its doors in early 2009 to regular international scrutiny by the newly created UN Human Rights Council. Cuba refused visits by a special rapporteur appointed by the previous body, the UN Human Rights Commission.

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