The Cuban People Need Canada's Support

The Cuban People Need Canada's Support
By Nelson Taylor Sol Created: Mar 6, 2010 Last Updated: Mar 6, 2010

The death last month of Orlando Zapata, Cuban prisoner of conscience,
reveals once again the intrinsic evil of the Castro dictatorship.

Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children have died during the
five decades of communist rule in Cuba. Several generations of Cubans
have never enjoyed the most basic rights or freedoms. Nevertheless, the
Castro brothers, Fidel and Raúl, have not been able to silence the
voices of those who, like Zapata, prefer physical death to the spiritual
death they feel under communism.

What Cubans want is freedom. What Cubans desire is unequivocal support
from the rest of the world in getting that freedom. What good are
condolences and demands for change from Canada's head of foreign affairs
for the Cuban people? Actually, such actions are negated by Canada's
continued trade, investment, tourism, and political ties, which actually
have supported the Castro regime. It is difficult to reconcile the
principled stand Canada has against the military junta in Burma—or its
opposition to the American policy of embargo—with the acceptance given
the Castro brothers.

A false nationalism expressed in an anti-American foreign policy
undermined the good character of Canada when it decided to accept the
Cuban revolution in the first place. Today, 51 years later, Cuba's civil
society and members of the opposition movement find it hard to see
Canada as a friend.

It's time for our government and the politicians who represent to us to
ally themselves with the people of Cuba and to distance themselves from
the oppressive Castro dictatorship. What's the point in having so many
"experts" in Latin American studies and publicly funded institutions
focused on hemispheric affairs, when our parliamentarians are not able
to publicly mention the names—let alone express solidarity—of so many
Cuban prisoners of conscience?

Let's look at the Canada-Cuba Parliamentary Friendship Group. Is it
possible that those MPs do not understand that they are calling
themselves "friends" of a Cuba that cannot choose its representatives?
Their actions don't make them friends, but enemies of Cuba. It is
self-deception to believe that a bunch of criminals who usurped power 51
years ago could ever represent the 11 million Cubans stranded in Cuba or
the approximate one million who live in exile.

The day will come, in a free Cuba, when people will learn about the
dignity of the Czechs and the solidarity of the Poles at a time when
support for the Cuban people was needed the most. In an event without
precedent in recent parliamentary history, 90 Polish legislators put
their differences aside to adopt, symbolically, 90 Cuban political
prisoners. They are indeed true friends of Cuba and their gesture will
not be forgotten.

Over a century ago, Cuban national hero José Martí, like Orlando Zapata,
gave his life for Cuba's freedom at the age of 42. He said, "There are
men who live contented though they live without decorum. Others suffer
as if in agony when they see around them people living without decorum.
There must be a certain amount of decorum in the world, just as there
must be a certain amount of light.

"When there are many men without decorum, there are always others who
themselves possess the decorum of many men. These are the ones who rebel
with terrible strength against those who rob nations of their liberty,
which is to rob men of their decorum. Embodied in those men are
thousands of men, a whole people, human dignity."

Our eternal gratitude goes today to the men and women who have
sacrificed their lives for the freedom of Cuba.

Nelson Taylor Sol is Ottawa Representative Director for the Cuban
Canadian Foundation (www.cuban canadianfoundation.com).

Epoch Times - The Cuban People Need Canada's Support (7 March 2010)
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/30869/