Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan
Some judges at Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board treated Cuban asylum seekers lightly, arguing that since the one-party government controls all jobs it denies dissidents proper employment and that this amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and persecution.
Other judges asserted that Cuba was no harsher on dissidents than other communist countries and authoritarian regimes such as in Iraq and Libya and Cuban asylum claimants must meet the legal requirements that apply to all asylum seekers. I held this view and the Federal Court, on appeal, upheld my decisions rejecting some Cuban claimants.
I recently visited Cuba as a tourist. I did not seek information but talked to people at the resort and during excursions to cities. Cubans, being highly educated, exchanged views freely offering a glimpse of their lives and asking about Canada.
Cuba is a one-party state. The state controls the media. Internet is not allowed in private homes. The state manages the economy by encouraging private enterprise within limits. The economy did well at times, particularly when the Soviet Union and Venezuela provided subsidies. But the economy is shaky now and most Cubans work hard just to survive. Some risk their lives trying to escape across the seas in rickety ships.
But Cubans are relatively content. This is partly because the government provides food subsidies as well as free health care and education, including university education. So while there is poverty, it is shared by most Cubans. Compared to the past, and many of their neighbors, Cubans are not that badly off. Before the revolution, 25 percent of the people were illiterate, only 15 percent of rural homes had running water, poverty, unemployment, crime, prostitution and drug-use were chronic.
Cuba has never enjoyed democracy or social justice. It was ruled by Britain, Spain and then the US, finally becoming independent in 1902. US President William McKinley had offered to buy Cuba for $300 million. The offer was rejected but US businesses controlled and exploited the Cuban economy.
This became particularly glaring during the rule of General Fulgencio Batista in 1940-1944 and in 1951-1959 when a coup planned in Florida restored him to power. When Castro revolted against Batista and the US stopped sale of rifles to Batista, State Department adviser William Wieland made the now-famous remark: “I know Batista is considered by many as a son of a bitch…. but American interests come first… at least he was our son of a bitch.” In 1959, Castro won.
When Castro nationalized US-owned industries the US demanded a hefty compensation — a strange demand by a power which used military force to compel weak countries to yield to American multinational corporations, and which has not compensated innocent people whom its wars killed or maimed in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other places. The Cuban refusal to offer compensation resulted in an armed attack in 1961 by 1,500 US- trained Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. It was repulsed. The US tried several times to assassinate Castro, as the US Senate Select Intelligence Committee stated, but without success. The US imposed a trade embargo on Cuba which BBC estimates has cost the Cubans a trillion dollars over 50 years.
Cuba not only survived but began aiding developing countries. Thousands of Cubans helped build housing, roads, airports, hospitals and other facilities in Latin America, Africa and Asia. During the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, Cuba set up 32 field hospitals and two relief camps and sent more than 2,400 physicians and paramedical staff to help. They performed more than 600,000 consultations, including some 6,000 surgeries.
The tough US embargo, the falling prices of sugar and the end of subsidies from Venezuela and the Soviet Union brought the Cuban economy to its knees. Cuba’s 12 million people struggled to survive given their per capital income of some $6,000 a year. For them life is a hassle. Even in tourist resorts the light is so dim in rooms that you can only read with difficulty.
In 2006 an ailing Fidel Castro was succeeded by his brother Raul, who has instituted some economic reforms. But Cubans I talked to said more economic and financial and perhaps political reforms are needed to make life easier for the average Cuban. But the Castro revolution ended foreign exploitation of Cuba and provided social justice and dignity. Cubans today enjoy free education, free health services, subsidized food and relatively low crime.
Most Cubans don’t know much about Batista’s corruption and oppression. All they know is that they seem to be better off than neighboring countries and their own parents, but that life still remains tough. They are hoping that more reforms and the end of the US embargo would make their lives more comfortable. Then, perhaps, their country will become even for them the paradise that it is for happy tourists who come to Cuba by the millions. One person from Toronto told me in Cuba that he has been to every Latin country and that Cuba is the best. He was on his 35th visit to the country.
— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge.
