See this story from the Globe and Mail. This problem is more common than you think. I fail to see why, with so many better choices for a vacation, Canadians continue to flock and support the Communist regime in Cuba with their tourist dollars.
One of my former clients was jailed after a motorcycle accident where the only person hurt was himself while driving at his job delivering mail, but he had the misfortune of colliding against a car driven by a Cuban senior military officer. After waking up from his concussion at the hospital, he was automatically jailed and eventually convicted to a 10 year term, of which he served four.
I represented many Cubans who desperately fled the grip of the oppressive State Security apparatus while being abroad, including several members of dance troupes and musical groups, students, professionals, film makers, professors, etc. All of them invariably told me stories of mental and physical abuse, untold controls, spying by the infamous "Committees for the Defense of the Revolution", random questioning by the police, and in some cases jail terms for trumped up charges.
Canadians seldom understand that Cuba is a police state, where the State Security and informants are stationed in hotels and watch the interaction between tourists and staff to ensure loyalty to the regime, and where there is no rule of law as we understand it in the event of a problem. Beware... and go elsewhere!
Mother wants Ottawa's help with son’s Cuban ‘nightmare’ - The Globe and Mail
Friday, July 23, 2010 5:10 PM
Mother wants Ottawa's help with son’s Cuban ‘nightmare’
Gloria Galloway
Cody LeCompte and his mom headed to Cuba for a vacation in late April – a week in the sun that was his reward for getting accepted into a aviation technology program at college. Nearly three months later, he is still there, unable to leave the country because he was the driver of a car that was involved in a car accident.
Mr. LeCompte, who is staying at a Cuban resort, was recently told a jury will decide if his case needs to go to a full criminal trial. Now the teenager is afraid he will be spending time in a Cuban prison.
Not that he has been charged in the incident – he was driving down a main road in the Caribbean country that is the second-most popular tourist destinations for Canadians when his rental car was hit by a truck that emerged from a side road.
But he was injured along with the other three people travelling with him: his mother, his cousin and his cousin’s Cuban fiancée. All survived but the fiancée had to have part of her liver removed.
And that is a problem. Because, in Cuba, accidents resulting in death or injury are treated as crimes and the onus is on the driver to prove innocence. Regardless of the nature of the accident, it can take five months to a year for a case to go to trial. In most cases, the driver will not be allowed to leave Cuba until the trial has taken place.
“It’s been a nightmare,” his mother Danette said in a telephone interview Friday from Cuba, where she has returned to spend time with her son.
The date of the jury hearing is supposed to be announced shortly, she said. “We have heard that they are going to put a rush on it but we have been told a lot of things.”
Meanwhile, she is braced for the possibility that it could be many more months before her son can leave.
Representatives of Canada’s consular affairs team in Cuba were supposed to pay them a visit, she said, but that has never happened. “They call about every three days but just for updates on when we are going to the lawyer’s [office]. But as for assistance and getting us home, there’s nothing.”
Now the bills are piling up. “And I am not a person who has this kind of money. We had to save for this trip,” she said. “So we are into probably $20,000 or $25,000 with everything, with hiring the Cuban lawyer, with the phone bills, with paying for the resort. It’s overwhelming.”
The Foreign Affairs department in Ottawa said the Canadian embassy in Cuba and the consulate in Guardalavaca, in Holguin province, are providing consular assistance and support to Mr. LeCompte.
“The Canadian Government cannot interfere in the judicial process of a foreign country,” department spokeswoman Dana Cryderman said. “But Canadian consular officials are following the case very closely with Cuban authorities.”
She noted that Deepak Obhrai – the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs – has met with senior Cuban officials while at the African Union Summit in Uganda and raised Mr. LeCompte’s case directly.
Liberal MP Dan McTeague, however, thinks more pressure could be brought to bear.
He said he understands the accident was serious and the Cuban authorities must be allowed to proceed through their normal process for reviewing these kinds of cases. “But that doesn’t mean our consular officials should be on the sidelines waiting,” he told The Globe.
“They should be urging, pressing, helping, continuing to inquire as to the status of the case to ensure that the case moves along as soon as possible.”
The fact that none of them have paid Mr. LeCompte a visit suggests “that the level of interest at this point is somewhat peripheral and it isn’t directly engaged on our end.”
More than that, Mr. McTeague said, any Canadian travelling to Cuba should be made aware of the risks of driving and renting a car.
“I think it’s critical that the Canadian government, in concert with travel agencies in Canada, provide Canadians full disclosure of the circumstances that might lead to these kinds of unfortunate outcomes,” the Liberal MP said.
There is a warning about the problem on the Foreign Affairs website. But, like many Canadians, the LeCompte’s did not check the site before leaving on their trip.
“We weren’t warned at all,” Ms. LeCompte said. “The travel agents should be warning people. It should be out there not to drive in Cuba.”
Since her son’s plight has been made public, the tale has lit up the telephones on radio talk shows and Canadians have been firing off e-mails to the Cuban Ambassador Teresita de Jesús Vicente Sotolongo and the Cuban Tourism Minister.
But there was no response from the Cuban embassy in Ottawa to queries from The Globe because officials have gone home for the summer.
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