Mar. 4, 2009
Reprinted from FOX News

A top U.N. official accused the United States of committing inhuman "atrocities" in Iraq and Afghanistan during a speech Wednesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"The aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," said U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann.

D'Escoto claimed that U.S. actions have directly led to more than a million Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003, a vastly inflated figure that does not correspond with the U.N.'s own estimates.

The U.N.'s health and medical agency, the World Health Organization, says 151,000 Iraqis have died since the 2003 invasion. IraqBodyCount.org puts the death toll between 90,000- 99,245.

D'Escoto's fiery speech came on the day the Obama administration decided to take up observer status on the Human Rights Council, which the Bush administration had boycotted because it was unable to crack down on despots and human rights abuses.

D'Escoto urged the Council to put the human rights situation in Iraq on its agenda, accusing the U.S. of war crimes and a series of human rights violations. "These must be addressed to bring an end to the scandalous present impunity," he said.

He also called on the U.S. to free five Cuban nationals being held in U.S. prisons. The group was convicted in a Miami court in 2001 on a range of charges including lying about their identities, trying to obtain U.S. military secrets and spying on Cuban exile groups.

D'Escoto, once the foreign minister for the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua, called the five "heroes" being held in "preposterous conditions."

D'Escoto said he was hopeful that the Obama administration would address his concerns and bring change to American policies concerning the imprisoned Cubans.

"The immediate ex-incarceration of the five Cuban heroes would help strengthen our confidence that the promised change is for real," he said.

To download a PDF of D'Escoto's speech, click here Here is the section about the Cuban Five: "And last but not least, dear brothers and sisters, I want to call your attention to the plight of the five Cuban heroes who are still being held in preposterous conditions and serving unheard-of jail sentences for having denounced and provided pertinent information concerning terrorist activities being planned in the U.S. by Cuban expatriates against their former Motherland with the support of U.S. authorities. We are very hopeful about meaningful and credible change being brought by the new U.S. Administration. The immediate exincarceration of the five Cuban heroes would help strengthen our confidence that the promised change is for real."

ban youth delegation multiplies Thursday the Russian people s solidarity with five anti-terrorist fighters from that country imprisoned in the United States.