U.S. diplomats damned Ottawa for being soft on Cuban abuses

Share

U.S. diplomats posted to Cuba expressed frustration that Canada's Conservative government failed to openly decry human-rights abuses by the authoritarian state, according to a new State Department cable that has surfaced in the ongoing WikiLeaks data dump.

The cables [[LINKTEXT]]cables [[/LINKTEXT]][URL]]ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/236391[[/URL]]ere written shortly after Peter Kent, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas), visited Cuba in November of 2009.

Jonathan Farrar, the U.S. head of mission, complained that Canada " failed to meet with the independent civil society or make public pronouncements [on human rights]after the visit of Minister Kent."

The cable continued that "this was surprising, since Kent and Prime Minister [Stephen]Harper had been publicly critical of Cuba's human-rights record."

Mr. Kent did raise the issue of political prisoners, but only in closed-doors meetings with Cuban officials, according to the cable.

For half a century Washington has used diplomatic and trade levers to squeeze Cuba, in the hope of forcing a change of regime from the Communist authoritarian state imposed by members of the Castro family.

That Canadian companies continue to do business with Cuba has always been something of a bilateral irritant for Washington, but the leaked State Department cable amounts to a rare public criticism of Canada's foreign policy.

Ottawa officials will not comment. "Irresponsible leaks like these are deplorable and do not serve anybody's national interests," wrote Melissa Lantsman, a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, in an e-mail.

Overall, U.S. officials seem to bemoan the fact that most countries are blinded by commercial opportunities with Cuba and won't give it the "tough love" it needs. Havana, the cable says, "deploys considerable resources to bluff and bully many missions and their visitors into silence."

The State Department cables say many countries, including Russia and China, take a "best friends forever" approach that distills to "We don't raise [human rights]in public or private."

Slightly less galling for U.S. officials are the European countries said to take a "keep-it-private approach" to advocating human rights, according to the cable.

"Canada laid a claim on this group after the November visit of Americas Minister Peter Kent," the cable says, lamenting that a rights-rhetoric ally had lost some of its nerve.

Following Mr. Kent's visit to Cuba, the Department of Foreign Affairs circulated a good-news press release. "We are seeing tremendous potential for growth in Canadian exports to Cuba," Mr. Kent was quoted as saying at the time.

The release added that he met Cuban political officials and that he "participated in a round-table discussion with representatives of civil society."

Other leaked State Department cables reveal that U.S. diplomats were out to discredit the Cuban state's health-care system, particularly after U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore lionized it in the movie Sicko.

Officials were said to be "always looking for human-interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess," according to one cable.

Meanwhile, in multilateral meetings many countries complained that Cuba wasn't paying its debts.

"China suggested Canada help secure payment from a Cuban joint venture that includes Canadian firm Sherritt International," says one cable, referring to a resource company whose ventures were just starting to become profitable.