See report below from the Montreal Gazette.
It is quite predictable and has happened before: as soon as Canada puts diplomatic pressure on a country based on the brutal actions of its government, its diplomats, usually closely connected to an offending regime, jump ship and claim "asylum" as soon as they are being told that they are being expelled from Canada and have to give up their cushy lifestyle.
If the report below is accurate, the question would be whether the "refugee claimant" is closely connected to the Qaddafi dictatorship. This is a huge waste of taxpayers dollars as i twill take several years to sort this out. Interestingly enough, the IRPA has inadmissibility provisions that would bar senior officials of designated regimes that abuse human rights from entering Canada. However, if the person is already in Canada, the provision loses its meaning. This is laughable. What is the point of ordering representatives of a rogue regime expelled if they end up staying anyway?
Libyan diplomat claims refugee status as Canada cuts diplomatic ties
Libyan diplomat claims refugee status as Canada cuts diplomatic ties
By Laura Baziuk and Beatrice Fantoni, Postmedia News
August 9, 2011
OTTAWA — At least one Libyan diplomat facing expulsion from Canada has claimed refugee status in Canada, Postmedia News has learned.
It is not known when the claim was filed. Refugee claimants are entitled to a hearing with the Immigration and Refugee Board.
The news came as Canada moved to sever all diplomatic ties with Libya — and as critics renewed their calls for the federal government to take similar steps with Syria.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced this week the federal government is expelling the four remaining diplomats at the Libyan embassy in Ottawa as its latest step to isolate Col. Moammar Gadhafi's regime, giving them five days to pack their things and leave the country.
It's hard to say yet whether Libyan diplomats might face violent or legal repercussions upon their return to Libya, said Louis Delvoie, a former Canadian ambassador to Pakistan and Algeria and research fellow at Queen's University.
"It depends on what they were doing in Ottawa. To the best of my knowledge, none of them denounced their allegiance to the Gadhafi regime, so I don't think they would be faced with any particular sanctions going home," Delvoie said.
If the rebels are successful in toppling the regime, then diplomats might have a reason to think they face some danger, he said, but diplomats probably would not face as dire consequences as Gadhafi's troops, for example.
"This is the moment we've been waiting for," Sufyan Maghur, former Canadian representative of the National Transitional Council, an anti-Gadhafi Libyan group, said of the expulsions.
"I think it's very good news for the whole Libyan community. Now they can relax — there's no official representative from the Libyan government spying on them or trying to create trouble."
Maghur said the next step would be for the Canadian government to invite the council, which it has already recognized as the Libyans' legitimate representative, to move into the embassy and commence its own relations with Canada and support the thousands of Libyan students currently living in Canada.
A request to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for information on whether the council would be invited into the Libyan embassy was not received by press deadline.
Delvoie called the expulsion significant but said the extreme length of time it took officials to make the move was "laughable," especially considering Canada is essentially at war with Libya while on the NATO mission to protect civilians from their dictator.
"When your air force is actively bombing the armed forces . . . of another country and of another government, you are at war," Delvoie said. "You do not maintain diplomatic relations with countries with which you are at war."
He said he doubts it will slow down Gadhafi's forces. "So far, Col. Gadhafi has been able to resist that external pressure quite successfully," he said. "It hasn't made his regime crack, so one more episode like this is not going to have that effect, I don't think."
Now that Canada has cut ties with Gadhafi, the diplomatic spotlight shifts to Syria, another nation Canada has condemned for attacks on civilians and widespread human-rights violations. More than 2,000 people have been killed since an uprising began against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
But although Libyans in Canada are celebrating, Syrians are unsure how Canada should proceed.
Abdullah Almalki, an Ottawa engineer who spent 22 months in a Syrian jail because of false Canadian intelligence, said he did not know whether removing the Canadian ambassador from Syria was a good idea, but added he did not wish to close the embassy in the capital, Damascus.
"What would happen to any Canadian there who would get into trouble?" Almalki asked. "Don't they have to have representation if something happens?"
Delvoie acknowledged that splitting with Syria — through actions such as pulling Canada's ambassador to that country, something that New Democrat foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar has called for — could be done. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain recalled their representatives from Syria earlier this week. But once the ties are cut, he said, there would be no going back.
"Any pressures you might want to bring for diplomatic channels end at that point," he said. "If you're still saying that you want to reform the Assad regime, then you keep diplomatic relations in existence."
Meanwhile, Robert Barrett, a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies in Calgary, said it's "high time" for Canada to recall its ambassador to Syria, given the recent bloodshed there.
"Yes, this can be done, and yes, it's a legitimate form of political manoeuvring," Barrett said. "But there has to be a bit of a case-by-case analysis."
No new political party or rebel force has materialized in Syria, he said, so if Canada expels its Syrian diplomats, they would have no replacements.
Barrett also said pulling the ambassador from Syria would send the right political message, while allowing Canada to still conduct some diplomatic relations.
"It doesn't mean you cannot still intervene diplomatically, you cannot provide pressure through an international body or international collective voice," he said. "And it doesn't mean you can't reinstate your ambassador as a signal that Syria has either stopped the violence or is making moves (to do so)."
A request for comment on possibly severing further relations with Syria also was not received from the Foreign Affairs Department by press deadline.
Looking forward in Libya, both Barrett and Delvoie expressed concern over potential inter-tribal conflicts within the transitional council, should Gadhafi eventually succumb.
"In many cases, we may be underestimating the divisions within the NTC right now," Barrett said. "They all agree Gadhafi should be gone, but when Gadhafi is gone, there's going to be a lot of wrangling and potential violence in terms of who gets the goodies and how does this get divided up."
Delvoie said Canadian decision-makers should settle on a clear goal in Libya so as to avoid staying there longer than needed. They should fully consider options such as a new rebel-led government, he said, and whether those would be the best choices.
"All of these (internal council divisions) point to the strong possibility of not a happy outcome of a simple takeover of government," Delvoie said, "but to the real possibility of civil war."
No comments:
Post a Comment