Good morning.
Canada's foreign policy in Cuba is based on constructive engagement. According to the Canadian International Development Agency, Cuba's social policies set it apart from many other developing countries. Public investments in education and health, for example, have resulted in social development indicators that meet and even surpass those in some developed countries--that is according to CIDA.
Historically, the Cuban regime has counted on the support of many sectors of the international community. For the world to understand what has been going on in Cuba for over 48 years, certain definitions must be clarified.
Firstly, a government with a totalitarian control on society and individuals is unaccountable by nature.
Secondly, the assumption that human rights are tailored on a cultural basis has served dictators in getting away with human rights violations that are otherwise inadmissible in the so-called western world.
Thirdly, and no less important, is the fact that anti-Americanism has been conveniently exploited by dictators like Fidel Castro, who has capitalized on this sentiment, therefore paralyzing opinion makers and political parties, on the doctrine that whatever goes against the United States has to be automatically supported. Sadly enough, some movements have found an identity based on anti-Americanism, making it difficult for them to empathize with the suffering of countries like Cuba.
Some comparisons between present-day Cuba and that of 50 years ago may be useful in order to clarify certain prejudices. During the Batista dictatorship, there were 11 prisons in Cuba; now there are over 300.
According to a report presented on May 11, 2004, by the illegal Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, starting in 1956, the total number of prisoners in Cuba was less than 4,000, or around 0.06% of the country's population.
Please note that in May 1955, former dictator Batista signed the general amnesty for political prisoners, including those serving time for killing soldiers, in clear reference to Fidel Castro and his group during the attack of the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba.
Now it is estimated that there are over 100,000 prisoners in Cuba, by far the highest in the world in terms of percentage, with around 1% of the total population of 11 million. This figure has been neither accepted nor denied by Cuban authorities, who forbid cooperation with the International Red Cross.
According to Dr. Armando Lago, board vice-president of the Free Society Project and Cuba Archive research director, Ph.D., and master in economics from Harvard University, to date over 8,200 cases have been documented of executions, assassinations, and disappearances by the Castro regime. Total deaths from exit attempts by sea, called balseros, are estimated at around 78,000. Within the documented cases are 94 children's deaths, including 22 by firing squad executions, 32 extrajudicial assassinations, and 24 assassinated in exit attempts. There are similar cases of female deaths, totalling 216.
The following are some of the myths about Cuba, which have become deeply rooted in public opinion.
Myth number one, there is a U.S. blockade on Cuba.
In reality, between 2001 and March 2004, under the United States Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancements Act, the value of authorized agricultural food products exported to Cuba was $518,216,553. It is estimated that Cubans in the U.S. send $1 billion U.S. a year in remittances to Cuba. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, one-third of the island's food and one-third of the island's medicine originates in the United States. The 2006 exports to Cuba totalled $347.8 million U.S.
Myth number two, living conditions of the Cuban populace prior to Castro's arrival to power were appalling.
In reality, Cuba is one of the countries of Latin America where the standard of living of the masses was particularly high; this is according to a Cuban communist leader called Anibal Escalante, in the July 30, 1961, issue of Verde Oliva Magazine.
In health, Cuba 's mortality rate was 5.8 people per 1,000 inhabitants, making it among the lowest in the world, while its infant mortality rate of 36.6 per 1,000 was similarly the lowest in Latin America, far ahead of the second-ranked country.
Cuba ranked second in Latin America in the percentage of its labour force covered by social security insurance against old age, disability, and death, with 62.6% of the workforce insured.
The Cuban republic prior to Castro's revolution provided an eight-hour work day, the right to strike, university autonomy, and had a public space with large numbers of newspapers and radio stations with diverse political and ideological viewpoints.
Today the average salary is $15 Canadian a month, 70% of the population have never known any leader other than Fidel Castro, and 20% of the Cubans live in exile.
Myth number three, illiteracy was extremely high in Cuba until the arrival of Fidel Castro.
In reality, according to a 1953 Cuban census, out of 4,376,529 inhabitants aged 10 years or older, 23.6% were illiterate, a percentage lower than all other Latin American countries except Argentina, Chile, and Costa Rica. Factoring only the population 15 years of age or older, the rate has lowered to 22%.
Myth number seven, Cuba's health care system is universal and egalitarian for all Cubans.
In reality, according to the Pan American Health Organization, the Cuban government currently devotes a smaller percentage of its budget to health care than such regional countries as Nicaragua, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, and Costa Rica. The Pan American Health Organization finds that Cuba, in terms of per capita expenditures on health care, is behind such regional countries as Argentina, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, and Jamaica.
Turning to health care in Cuba, medical apartheid, and health tourism, Cuba's growing health care tourism effort has roused bitter reproach from the nation's critics, who accuse the regime of Fidel Castro of creating an apartheid system of health care in which foreigners and the Cuban party elite get top-class service while average Cubans must make it with dilapidated facilities, outdated equipment, and meagrely stocked pharmacies. These greatly contrast with Cuban elite hospitals promoted by such health tourism enterprises as SERVIMED.
Hilda Molina, one of Cuba 's most noted scientists, founder and former director of Havana's International Center for Neurological Restoration, broke with the regime and resigned from her high-level position, and also as a member of Cuba's National Assembly, to protest the system of medical apartheid.
