STOP KISSING CASTRO'S BOOTS

April 30, 1998

STOP KISSING CASTRO'S BOOTS

By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Toronto Sun When I was growing up in Europe, Canadians used to be known as no-nonsense, tough customers. Mess with Canucks, and you'd risk good thumping.
Decades of Pierre Trudeau's soft socialism, perpetuated by the media and education system, transformed Canada into an overly feminized society where inoffensiveness and wimpishness have become national art forms. Just look at PM Jean Chretien's embarrassing visit this week to Cuba.
Chretien ostensibly went to plead with Fidel Castro, Cuba's Leader for Life, to free some political prisoners, and liberalize his '50s-era Stalinist regime. Castro not only brusquely rebuffed the prime minister, he publicly compared the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba to the Holocaust -- while Chretien listened silently.
Why would Chretien, a decent, honorable man, put himself -- and Canada -- in such a humiliating position? Any Havana shoeshine boy knows Castro would not renounce communism -- which means his personal rule -- simply because a nice Canadian visitor asks him to.
The United States is Canada's most important trading partners, not to mention protector, neighbor and sister nation. When Castro outrageously compared the U.S. embargo of his island to Hitler's Holocaust, Chretien should have grabbed the mike and told off Castro. Cubans would have admired this -- it's called, in Spanish, having cojones.
Canadians sneer the U.S. embargo is motivated by American domestic politics. Why does Canada give foreign aid and diplomatic support to Cuba, our hemisphere's worst violator of human rights?
For domestic political reasons, of course. Castro remains a saint and sex symbol to Canada's left. Canadian firms make money in Cuba, benefitting from stolen property, and police state control of labor. Kissing Castro's combat boots thrills academia, the Toronto Star and the rest of Canada's anti-American left.
The government insists its "positive engagement" with Cuba will produce liberalization. But Canada has "engaged" with Cuba since Trudeau and his pot-smoking wife romped with Castro two decades ago. Cuba remains Stalinist. How much longer will it take?
"We've gotten some political prisoners freed," chirp partisans of Ottawa's romance with sultry Cuban communism. These poor nits don't realize Castro is using his prisoners just as communist East Germany did. When Cuba needs more cash, or friendly visits from wholesome leaders, it frees prisoners. When the supply runs low, more "enemies of the state" are arrested.
Chretien should have told Castro: "Look, we appreciate you are an honest dictator, who truly cares about his people. But Canada cannot tolerate abuses of human rights by Cuba any more. We cannot accept dictatorship in our hemisphere. Canada is Cuba's leading financial supporter. Canadians tourists are your prime source of hard currency. You need us badly; we don't need you at all.
"I'm not here to plead. I'm here to tell you: We will begin cutting aid and tourism unless you allow at least some free speech, dissent, opposition parties and press freedoms. Free all political prisoners now. Do this -- show some progress -- and we will intercede with Washington to end its embargo. The U.S. is just itching for you to make a few positive steps.
"Many Canadians and Latin Americans admire your machismo in standing up long ago to the overbearing, often arrogant Americans, and helping restore wounded Latin pride. But those days are long gone. Enough of being a Caribbean North Korea. Cuba must change.
"Dr. Castro, a leader should die for his country, not a nation for its leader."