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Uphold the Right of Self-Determination! No to Colonial and Imperial Policies! |
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-Isaac Saney, CNC Spokesperson, March 2, 2021-
The Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC) is outraged by the communique from Global Affairs Canada summarizing the February 26 virtual meeting between Foreign Minister Marc Garneau and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. It is an open declaration that Ottawa, lock step with the United States, arrogates to itself the right to intervene in the affairs of countries across the globe, particularly in the Americas. As the follow-up to the so-called Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership launched by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden in their own February 23 virtual meeting, the communique not only violates international law, norms and conventions but also reeks of the discredited colonialist mentality and practice of foisting on independent countries imperial arrangements that they do not want or accept.
The declaration of the Trudeau government’s “commitment to address human rights and needed reforms in Cuba” is not only a slander against Cuba but an intolerable interference in the sovereign affairs of Cuba and violation of its right to self-determination. Global Affairs Canada is deliberately parroting the disinformation of the United States State Department about Cuba. Nowhere in the communique is there a mention of the real violator of human rights in Cuba: the ongoing U.S. economic war and campaign of subversion against the heroic island nation. Nowhere is there even an inkling that Garneau took Blinken to task for not addressing the Trump regime’s deceitful and duplicitous designation of Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism: an act of blatant opportunism and cynicism, flying in the face of the reality that it is Cuba that has been the victim of all manner of terrorist attacks carried out with the complicity, participation and sponsorship of Washington.
If the Trudeau government is truly interested in the cause of democracy, then it should unequivocally and unambiguously demand the end of U.S. economic sanctions and other aggressions against Cuba. Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution more than sixty -years ago, the objective of Washington’s strategy has centred on the negation and extinguishment of Cuba’s right to self-determination, sovereignty and independence. This effort to asphyxiate Cuba is the principal obstacle to this proud island nation’s social and economic development, costing the people of Cuba in excess of $100 billion U.S.
Ottawa’s open alignment with U.S. policy is deeply disturbing and alarming. We call on Canadians to repudiate it with the contempt it deserves. The February 26 communique harkens back to a bygone era where great powers acted with impunity against and with utter disregard toward the nations of the Americas. The peoples of the Americas and the world have time and time again resoundingly rejected this method and mode of thinking. The great anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries bear witness to this.
If the Canadian government truly stands for democracy and the wellbeing of the peoples of the Americas and the world, it must uphold and practice a foreign policy based on equality and respect for sovereignty and the right of self-determination, abandoning and renouncing colonialist and imperialist mindsets and policies. |