Cuba, Castro, and Canadian moral compass misalignment

“I was obliged to go to Cuba in early February to prepare an article about Sherritt International.” Thus begins the editorial in the February 2008 issue of the Canadian Mining Journal. 

Clearly Jane Werniuk had some misgivings.  She writes further: 

There were a few surprises.  A lack of advertising for anything at all except the Revolution and its Heroes and Martyrs.  The array of vehicles….horse and human-drawn and the hundreds of patient hitchhikers…including soldiers in uniform.

The customs agents in both Cuba and Canada took more than a casual interest in me as a journalist on a quick turn-around trip to Cuba, a country where the press has no freedom…we could report on something that would be embarrassing, I suppose. 

First a picture of a truck at the Cuba mine of Sherritt of Canada: 

The picture of Jane Werniuk shows a woman of about fifty-five to sixty.  How did she get to that age without realizing that absence of press freedom means the absence of human freedom that includes the absence of advertising, motor vehicles, and transport even for soldiers?   How did she get old without realizing that only the Revolution and its Heroes and Martyrs count in a country ruled by a totalitarian, fascist dictator?

She is ashamed to go, I suspect.  She notes that she was asked and acceded (”caved in” is her term)  to requests not to name or photograph people in Canada or Cuba associated with Sherritt’s operations.  She admits that she brings back ”most” of the story from Cuba—presumably leaving out the honest and nasty parts?

Now Obama has had the courage to address the question of race head on.  Maybe it is time for Canada to address head on support for nasty regimes…. like Cuba, China, et al.   The benefits of mining-derived income do not justify it, in my opinion.  After all Canada was quick to condemn South Africa when it was apartheid dominated.  What has happened in the interim?  Has Canada lost it moral compass? 

Personally, I consider support in any way for regimes like that in Cuba to be immoral and degrading.  And this includes going to Cuba as an appologistic trade-journalist and the propaganda hack of a mining company.   How can one look oneself in the mirror as you age and cave in to immorality and venality?  Even if at this age you are discovering new things you knew not about? 

If there were a Canadian ombudsman for decent behavior, I would happily haul Sherrit and people like Wernuk before the tribunal.  They deserve no less for profiting from human slavery trumped up as Castro-control.