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Group Calls on Canada to
Stop Supporting Cuban Regime
By Pam McLennan
OTTAWA—A small group of Cuban expatriates
and their supporters who gathered on Parliament Hill Saturday
rejected the new leadership of Raoul Castro and accused the Canadian
government of being an enabler of the communist regime in Cuba.
It started with the recognition of Castro by former Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau, who treated Castro like an "elected official
instead of a dictator who took over the country," said Maurice
Sambra, a sculptor and painter.
"No government since then has recognized the brutality of
the regime that usurped the human rights of the people and stole
the assets of the country to maintain power."
Sambra called on the government to intervene for the Cuban people
and to press for the freedom of political prisoners and dissidents.
 "We
want Canada to exert pressure by not allowing Canadian enterprises
to invest in Cuba, which supports the enslavement of the workers.
The Cuban government has a new leader, Raoul Castro, but we don't
want him or his regime. We want true freedom for the people of
Cuba."
David Levy is originally from Argentina but after living for a
period in Cuba has been concerned for the Cuban people ever since.
Levy thinks that it is important for Canadians to know what is
happening in Cuba because "95 per cent of the money you spend
goes to a regime that has never been elected.
"They rig the elections, and although they have stayed in
power for 50 years, they can't be called a government. They are
a fraud that has cost Cubans close to 100,000 lives, and has kept
them in misery, poverty, and fear."
Levy recalled the crackdown in Cuba in March 2003, when seventy
five journalists, librarians, and unionists were tried on the
same day, convicted and given sentences of 10 to 28 years in prison.
The event has become known as The Cuban Black Spring.
"The main reason this happened is because they were speaking
the truth about the [communist] regime, about life in Cuba, and
they were asking for change. The whole country is held hostage
by a group of people who have no scruples or morals.
"They are concerned with only one thing – holding onto
power and promoting the same kind of revolution all over Latin
America and if possible to subvert the democratic governments
and democracy itself in the rest of the world."
Levy said that while the Canadian government is aware of the situation
in Cuba, it continues the "legacy left by Trudeau,"
treating Castro like an elected representative of the people of
Cuba.
"From then until now, Canada has continued to trade with
Cuba, and promoted tourism and investment in Cuba. All these things
support the nomenklatura who have stolen the people's assets.
We don't understand why the robbers of the country are recognized
as legitimate rulers."
Sambra said the constitution that was in place before Castro took
power should be brought back, which he said Castro changed "to
suit
his needs."
"It's very hard for the people in Cuba to survive Castro's
brutal dictatorship. I would like Canadians to know that what
seems like a vacation paradise for Canadians is hell for the Cuban
people. They suffer every day."
Before Sambra came to Canada as a refugee in 2001, he was jailed
three times, the first when he was only 16 years old for painting
a sign that said "Down with Castro's dictatorship."
"After writing and distributing some anti-Castro pamphlets
I was sentenced to eight years in jail," he said. "Amnesty
International (AI) and the Canadian government declared me to
be a prisoner of conscience, and then Canada accepted me as a
refugee."
Sambra has drafted a design for the Monument to the Victims of
Communism that has been proposed for Canada, and he would like
to submit it for consideration.
"The monument is important because it can show the Canadian
people and the world that the people didn't suffer for nothing.
We want to warn future generations not to make the mistake of
allowing communism into your country. Communism looks good when
you read about it but when you live under such a regime it is
brutal and you have no freedom at all."
In 1992 as opposition to Castro was growing, Sambra's brother,
Guillermo, who also attended the rally, began printing and distributing
flyers that said, "Don't vote for the communist party—vote
for freedom."
For this he was sentenced to 8 years in jail where he was tortured
and beaten as the guards tried to get him to reveal who had paid
him to make the flyers, not believing he had acted on his own
initiative.
They wanted to extract a confession from him so they could hold
him up as an example of what happens to people who think for themselves.
"I was willing to die for this and I said to myself if I
have to die for this – so be it," he said.
Guillermo's wife, Miriam Bressler, worked with AI and other democracy
groups to inform the world of his situation. He served five and
a half years of his sentence and was freed after intervention
of the Canadian government, AI, and Pope John Paul ll.
The brothers' father, Ismael Sambra, a journalist who also opposed
the Castro regime, spent almost five years of a 10 year sentence
in prison. After Canada obtained his release he promised his friends
and the two million exiled Cubans around the world that he would
continue to fight for the dissidents in Cuba.
"I know how people are suffering in jail now, how they are
dying little by little," said Ismael, president of the Cuban
Canadian Foundation.
Ismael expressed his view that Canada's involvement with Castro,
without recognizing and condemning the dictator's misuse of power
and repression of the people, has ignored the Cuban people's suffering
and need for their human rights to be reinstated.
"We are trying to awaken the conscience of the Canadian government
to use a better way [of dealing with] the Castro regime."
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