Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998
To: •••@••.•••
From: •••@••.••• (Jan Slakov)
Subject: S4Peace on Cuba
Return-Path: •••@••.•••
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 19:35:13 -0400
From: Eric Fawcett <•••@••.•••>
To: cKrajnc Susan s4ptor <•••@••.•••>,
Holden Lynn s4ptor <•••@••.•••>,
Mann Ted s4pont <•••@••.•••>,
Millen Jodi s4pont <•••@••.•••>,
Slakov Jan <•••@••.•••>,
Hanoman Lloyd s4ptor <•••@••.•••>,
Hathaway George s4ptor <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: SfP
>From •••@••.••• Jun 4 19:32:24 1998
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 21:32:41 -0400
From: Eric Fawcett <•••@••.•••>
To: s4p all lists <•••@••.•••>, •••@••.•••,
•••@••.•••, •••@••.•••
Subject: AN INCREDIBLE DOUBLE STANDARD ABOUT CUBA
This news item and my comment are relevant to the discussion following
a couple of articles in Peace Magazine last year that engaged several
SfP members.
I am forwarding the item on the day when the Globe and Mail carries a
vicious cartoon of a grinning face labelled "The Face of Autocracy",
having a single tooth identified as Castro (whom the face vaguely resembles);
the blank spaces in the gaping mouth corresponding to teeth that have
been knocked out are labelled: Idi Amin, Khomani, Pol Pot, Mobutu, Suharto,
Pinochet, and Marcos.
This isn't just using a "double standard", it's a conscious and perverse
distortion of history. Mobutu, Suharto, Pinochet and Marcos were autocrats
installed after terrible civil wars in which the USA played a large part,
whose records of tyranny were far worse than the admitted human rights
violations in Cuba; and whose records of social and economic injustice
(like that of the USA itself), make Cuba look in comparison like a
benevolent regime.
As for Pol Pot, who came to power with the support of the USA, after they had
devastated Cambodia in a secret war in which they dropped more bombs than
on Japan in WWII, killing about a million and traumatising the survivors
[I have solid documentation on this from a Guardian article by John Pilger];
and Khomeini who came to power after a popular revolution that deposed
the Shah of Iran, an appalling tyrant installed by the USA after they
overturned in 1953 the democratic government that had nationalised the
Iran oil industry---who was responsible for these autocrats?
Idi Amin goes way back in history to the British colonial regime. But to
compare Castro with this psychopath is a a conscious perversion of
history--nobody can be that ignorant!
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CUBA AND THE (CANADIAN GOVERNMENT'S) DOUBLE STANDARD
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's "As It Happens," Wednesday, April 29/98
Host:
"Last night we spoke with a former member of the U.S. Congress who wants
American businesses to have economic opportunities in Cuba. Sam Gibbons
represents a group lobbying for humanitarian trade which would
involve the relaxation of the strict U.S. embargo.
"After that interview, Talk-Back opened a free trade in ideas."
Caller:
"Hello, this is Carlos, calling from Victoria, B.C. Does this mean that
Mr.Chretien now is going to Colombia, perhaps, to raise the issue of
human rights and the, I don't know, 10,000 or so disappeared? Is he
going to visit Peru, to meet with another 'democratic' leader, Mr
Fujimori, and raise the issue of the disappeared and the torture of
hundreds, if not, thousands of people? Is he going to Mexico to raise
the issue about the massacres in Chiapas, the disappeared in the State
of Guerrero? Or, perhaps, the torture used in the State of Jabisco?
Then perhaps he could go also to Indonesia and raise the issue of the
twenty-one students that were recently captured and only about six of
them have showed up so far. And is he going to talk about the
disappeared and maybe raise the issue of the 250,000 East Timorese that
were killed when the Indonesians occupied the country? Or maybe he'll go
to South Korea?
I think there's an incredible double standard here! There's no
doubt that in Cuba there are a lot of problems for historical as well as
practical reasons, but as far as I know, nobody has ever been
'disappeared' in Cuba. You don't find people tortured in the streets,
with their genitals cut off and stuffed in their mouths as is the normal
rule in Indonesia or in Peru, for that matter.
So, let's get real, OK! Let's get real and get some priorities straight
and maybe Canada then will have a useful role to play. "
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