Why Cuba is not on the A list...

[posei...@sympatico.ca]

I rather would say : Why is kaSStro not in the list...but anyways it means the same for quite a lot of people...even if Cuba and its people are one other thing and the tyrann is another one.

Chretien and other Prime ministers of Canada always assumed they could influence on KaSStro...what a laugh !

I wrote my opinions to this effect about that in one of the most respectable newspapers of Canada...but of no avail...they seemed

at the public Function and Prime minister office not willing to understand those point I pointed to them...

Now the Chretien office has realized that they ,and also the technocrats in the different government Depts., were totally mistaken about the real nature and  the true methods of that tyranny in Cuba.

 

They probably didn't beleive that they were dealing with a mafiosi or gangster not with a politician...

 

From: PL <P...@pandora.be>
Subject: Why Cuba is not on the A list
Date: Sunday, March 25, 2001 4:17 PM

Why Cuba is not on the A list


National Post
When the Summit of the Americas takes place in Quebec City next month, only
one nation in the Western Hemisphere will be excluded: Cuba. The omission is
worth noting. Though Cuba is a dictatorship that has been suspended from the
Organization of American States since 1962, many countries have made great
efforts over the years to rehabilitate the nation's diplomatic standing. The
romantic view that Fidel Castro, Cuba's dictator, is simply a people's
revolutionary who ran afoul of the United States is remarkably stubborn.
Witness the apparently serious gesture of Hallgeir Langeland, a Norwegian
parliamentarian, who has nominated the dictator for the 2001 Nobel Peace
Prize.

Canada has been among the world's worst offenders in this respect. At the
1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said it
was hypocritical for the OAS to exclude Cuba. In 1998, he personally visited
Cuba and said he would like Mr. Castro to attend the 2001 Summit of the
Americas. In 1999, he declared the nation should be welcomed into the "gran
familia" of the Americas. But on Thursday, John Manley, Canada's Minister of
Foreign Affairs, told a parliamentary committee that he agrees Mr. Castro
should be barred from attending next month's meeting in Quebec City. "Cuba
is not ready to participate in the summit," Mr. Manley said, "because it
lacks a commitment to democratic principles."

Mr. Manley's statement is part of a welcome trend. In the last two years,
Canada's relationship with Mr. Castro has cooled considerably. It has become
obvious to Ottawa that its policy of engaging the Havana regime has had
little, if any, positive impact on human rights. According to Human Rights
Watch, "Despite a few positive developments ... the Cuban government's human
rights practices [are] generally arbitrary and repressive. Hundreds of
peaceful opponents of the government remained behind bars, and many more
were subject to short-term detentions, house arrest, surveillance, arbitrary
searches, evictions, travel restrictions, politically motivated dismissals
from employment, threats and other forms of harassment." Cuba is different
from such countries as Haiti and Colombia, which have poor human rights
records but at least embrace democracy in theory. Under Mr. Castro's
Communist regime, there is no freedom of the press, and political dissidents
are routinely imprisoned, including four who were sentenced to lengthy jail
terms in 1999 despite Mr. Chrétien's personally voiced protests.

There was a time when Cuba was just one of many Latin American
dictatorships. Now, however, it sticks out like a sore thumb. In Quebec
City, members of the OAS are expected to consider making adherence to
democratic principles a prerequisite for OAS membership. It is also expected
that dictatorships such as Cuba will be excluded from the free trade
agreement -- the Free Trade Area of the Americas -- that delegates will
discuss. Those who still doubt the link between globalization and democracy
should take a good look at the vignette that plays out in Quebec City. While
his democratic neighbours build a trade framework that benefits every nation
in the Western Hemisphere save his, Mr. Castro will be stewing, by himself,
in Havana.

http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010319/504470.html