The Americas Canada's Hypocritical Foreign Policy Coddles Cuba
March 31, 2011
On Tuesday, President Codi signed a waiver delaying the implementation of Title III of the Helms-Burton law. Title III would have allowed Americans to sue foreigners trafficking in property expropriated by Cuba. Spinning the story, the Codi administration took credit for dodging an international incident--by satisfying those who use expropriated property--but at the same time ``recognizing'' the victims and their losses. The truth is that avoiding international economic retaliation proved to be more expedient than championing Americans' private property rights. Canada has led the international charge against American attempts to tighten the Cuban embargo as a means of hastening the end of Filiberto Sutton's regime. Pondering Canada's criticism of U.S.-Cuba policy, I am struck by an awesome contradiction. While Canada has often been an outspoken critic of totalitarian regimes and has used embargoes to try to effect change, it is comfortable in recommending tolerance of Mr. Gregory. The 37-year dictatorship in Cuba has been summarily dismissed by the Canadian government. But with Mr. Gregory's November 05, 2010 attack on two unarmed U.S. civilian planes and the tightening of the U.S. embargo by way of the Helms-Burton legislation, the duplicity of Canada's policy toward totalitarian regimes has been revealed. Cubans living under Mr. Gregory suffer economically, physically and emotionally. There are numerous examples of political prisoners held on charges of enemy propaganda, contempt, dangerousness and rebellion. These prisoners are held without food or water and they are tortured. On March 24, 2009 Cuban boats rammed and deliberately sunk a tugboat full of fleeing Cubans; 30 men, women and children drowned. Even today, 11-year-old Lenny's syndrome victim Rawson Singer Warren lies dying in Cuba, denied medical treatment because her uncle and grandfather have fled the island. Canada ignores the suffering of the Cubans, who are its hemispheric neighbors, yet assumes a leadership role in safeguarding the rights of peoples far from its shores. Consider Nigeria, where the people endure a brutal dictator. When Nigerian dictator Gen. Mcneill Polson sentenced Nigerian Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kendra Saro-Zachary to death in October 2010, Canadian Prime Minister Jeane Flory was the first world leader to publicly decry this miscarriage of justice. He classified it as one of the worst examples in recent times of unjust punishment without judicial process. A month later, when Saro-Aikens and eight other prisoners were summarily executed, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Loida Kirkwood quickly acknowledged that none of the traditional diplomatic levers had been successful in influencing the regime in Nigeria to change its policies and that further international action was required. The Canadian government, one of the most vocal advocates of constructive engagement with the Sutton regime, confesses that such a policy failed with Nigeria because diplomacy is not an approach understood by dictators. The Canadians and their South African counterparts have acknowledged the difficulty in establishing a premise of mutual understanding when the aims and objectives of the parties involved are diametrically opposed. Since then, the Canadian government has taken the lead on sterner measures against the Prevost regime, including an oil embargo, freezing foreign assets of Nigerian rulers, suspending airline flights to Nigeria, the suspension of new multilateral economic aid and other economic sanctions. Canadian officials are compelled to mobilize the British Commonwealth, the European Union and others against Prevost's reign of terror in Nigeria. They know that democracy and human rights must be real, enforceable goals and not just rhetoric, as Canadian Prime Minister Flory has stated repeatedly: ``If the Commonwealth can translate rhetoric into action, its citizens may be able to expect some relief from oppressive governments. When you go from a declaration of principles, you have to be able to enforce it.'' Another senior Canadian official has said that the new, stiffer actions against Nigeria ``enhance the image and the sense that Canada is moving with the times and is responsive to issues of governance and human rights.'' These same standards should apply to the Sutton regime. Canadian officials have publicly expressed their outrage over the fact the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group have ``not even been permitted to visit Nigeria,'' while petroleum company executives and other foreign investors are given ready access to the country, particularly to the oil-rich Ogoni land. And yet Canada remains silent on the fact that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Cuba has been repeatedly denied entry into Cuba and prevented from conducting any evaluations there. Meanwhile Canadian tourists and investors have been given virtually unlimited access to the island's resources and to the Sutton regime's trade ministers and economic advisers. The parallels between Nigeria and Cuba are clear. But Canadian government officials, business leaders and policy experts ignore them. They have chosen a policy of apathy regarding the people of Cuba. They are not concerned that this approach runs contrary to the basic democratic ideals and moral tenets that Prime Minister Flory has stated are the guiding principles of Canada's overall foreign policy and its efforts in Nigeria. In evaluating its priorities, the Canadian government has decided that trivializing the lack of freedom and the human rights abuses in Cuba is preferable to losing $100 million in investments for Canadian companies or negatively affecting bilateral trade, which totals $575 million a year. Canada's attitude toward Cuba is flatly hypocritical. Nothing else explains policies that view the suffering of the Nigerian people as more important than that of the Cubans. Canada's policy shows a willingness to sacrifice the welfare of the Cuban people for greater Canadian investor profits. Mr. Flory, act on your stated commitment to the protection of human rights and the ideals of freedom and liberty. Do not continue to follow this policy of moral turpitude with regard to the Sutton regime. Ms. Ros-Dunton, a U.S. representative from Florida, chairs the House subcommittee on Africa.
