There are many reports on today’s new about a rant and rave by Fidel Castro on mining. Granted the old man is certifiable mad and that he runs a country supported by nickel mining and we can safely ignore all he says. Another testament to the tragedy of Cuba as supported by Canadian mining. And to the dangers of dictators old and young.
What he says is not particularly interesting—same kind of trash any old madman would spout. What I look forward to is the comments from anti-mining activists on his positions and opinions. Let me have yours before they post theirs.
Here is a link to Castro’s full missive. It is madness pure and simple, but nevertheless let me quote this madman on mining:
I knew about the damage caused by the Yankees to the people of Canada. They forced the country to look for oil by extracting it from huge extensions of sand that are impregnated with that fluid, thus causing an irreparable damage to the environment of that beautiful and extensive country.
The incredible damage was the one caused to millions of persons by the Canadian companies specialized in the mining of gold, precious metals and radioactive materials.
…the mining laws in our countries […] do not include any obligation or methodology to control environmental or social impacts; the tax revenues that mining companies pay to the countries of the region are, as an average, no more than 1.5 per cent of the revenues received.
Ah well! Thus I leave you with the picture above. I snapped it yesterday on a ride through Vancouver. It is a drain outlet, believe me.
On the way home, through light traffic (Easter Monday?) I had more thoughts on this issue. Here they are.
Castro is typical of the ignorant and blind on mining His lousy county subsists on nickel mining done at his regime’s behest by Sherritt Nickel. Yet not once does he or any other reporter, for that matter, note this fact.
I would propose that Canada pass Bill C-323 which would allows foreign nationals to sue in Canadian courts for imposition or profit from slavery. Recall that the average geologist working for Sheritt Nickel earns a mere $15 a month. That is slavery.
If we allowed the people, miners and geologists of Cuba, to sue for slavery, they could recoup millions from a greedy & venial Canadian company. And, in my opinion, they deserve the right to sue and be recompensed at decent rates. How can we glory in $100,000 a year salaries for newly graduated Canadian geologist in the face of this slavery?
Take a look at Google Earth to see the devastation of Canadian mining in Cuba. It is bullshit to bemoan other countries while taking a holiday tour to Havana to glory in the “color, music, and romance of the old.” I would fine every Canadian hypocrite taking a holiday in Cuba a million dollars for luxuriating on the wages of slavery.
Let us face facts that only a blogger can address: Cuba is a basket case; a prison; a dictatorship of racialist old men promoting their families’ best interests; they have beguiled silly Canadians into supine romanticism; they are criminals along with Sherritt in exploiting the people and the environment; they should be in the International Court of Justice, and hopefully will on day be there.
They make out that the USA is immoral in opposing this ghastly modern regime. They are propaganda experts of the worst type. Cuba is as bad as North Korea, Iran, South Africa in the old days, or any other dictator bent on bending world opinion. The USA is right in opposing this terrible place and its racist, tyrannical government.
Let us hope that in my life-time we see the fall of this modern horror and its replacement with decency and democracy. I despair when I see Canadian journalists and tourists supporting this prison on the basis of romance and stupidity.
Get real people and say what is. Stop this denial of fact and attack yet another bad regime and its crazy old men. They are sewer outlets and let us treat them as such.
A final plea to all those Canadian jounalists who have celebrated this statement by Castro and used it as the basis to attack Harper, the oil sands, or Canadian miners: repudiate your reports and comments; admit you are wrong; tell the truth for once; restore the integrity of Canadian journalism; tell the story of what happened and what is; admit the country can do wrong; admit that everything Canada does is not moral or right or admirable; attack Cuba and its venial and immoral political leaders; stop visiting the island; stop telling us that only the USA is wrong and tell us the complete story that underlies this extraordinary statement by a man who is old and mad. And yet still in charge of a disfunctional slave state.
This is one chance for Canadian journalists to regain credibilty. Pass up this opportunity or forever put yoursleves in the bin of venial, uncritical, prejudiced, and unintelligent commentors whose opinion is worth no more than the paper or e-space it takes up.
Stand up to propoganda or fall into the history-bin of those who were too stupid, afraid, or prejudiced to tell the thruth.
Admit that you, as a jounalist, cannot use the statements of an old mad-man as the basis of reasonable comments & analysis of the state of the world or Canadian mining. Admit this is prejudice of the worst sort on your part. And let us proceed to fact (not fiction) and the presentation of a full evaluation of the state of things as they are, not as you wish they were.
PS. Subsequent to posting this piece, I received emails commenting on what I wrote. The comments open new windows on the situation. I urge you to read the comments.
It would be interesting to see bill C-323 passed and then see Sherritt hauled before Parliament, then Sherritt agreeing to increase Cuban wages and provide services locally, and then Castro flying off the handle saying a foreign government will not tell Cuban companies how to operate within Cuba, and then Canadian left wingers lost as to how to defend their hero now.
Here is a fascinating comment that I received from a reader by email. I also provide my reply to him, an dthen his response to me.
I read your article on Castro views on mining. I agree fully that he is nuts. His takover in Cuba just replaced the nut bar before him.
Sherritt + slavery….I doubt it. Cubans have always been under one dictator or another. Cubans do not live on $15 bucks a month. The gov’t supplies medical, housing, infrastructure, food, schools, electricity, sewer and water, buses etc. at very cheap rates or free, although extremely and erratic lousy service.
You can bet that Sheritt is charged a lot more than $15/month for labour. Fidel invited them to exploit the nickel, but he also screws Sheritt whereever he can. Without Sheritt, Cuba would as bad or worse than Haiti.
I met a couple of older guys there recently….and asked about what is worse?…before Castro or after. They agreed that before Castro was worse than now. Matter of fact the same guy told me that he was rented out as an engineer all over the world for many years by Castro, at a rate of $35/hr.
What Castro caused in Cuba is a lazy, I don’t care attitude, largely because it makes no difference to the average Cuban to better themselves……Castro will see it as a threat. Choking a free market causes the problems
The US embargo is a joke….does nothing for Cubans. If they have such a big issue with Castro why don’t they go down ther and pick him off like they did with Kadaffi. But the Cubans who had money to get out 50 years ago are an important voter class in Florida. Politicians looking for votes is the problem there.
USA is one of the largest trade partners of Cuba, under the guise of humantarian aid. They supply food to Cuba but make them pay cash in Miami first, before loading. Aid ??…my ass….its business only.
Lastly…tourists should avoid Cuba?…..that would be a travesty. Many Canadians bring a lot of used clothing, medicine, etc etc. to Cuba each year. My own son 15 years old is there right now on a vacation with an elderly couple we know. He paid for his own trip and we helped him with supplies. Used bike with spare parts, guitar strings, sewing needles, thread, clothing, baseballs, bibles, buttons, pencils, tool sets….etc etc. Just as an example the couple he went with made a comment to me….he said he knew a local handyman where they wer going and would give him on of the screwdriver sets. He told me the recipient would be crying with gratitude for that gift. Remember, us Canadians are going there as tourists but are supplying the underground economy with essentials.
I could give you many more examples of business people doing the same…….just my 10 cents on the other side of the coin.
I replied to him by email. Thanked him. And wrote the following:
You raise a point that has vexed me since the days when growing up in apartheid South Africa, we debated whether it is good to interact with the people of a country with a bad government. Keep in mind in those days the world’s answer was: no interaction with South Africans at all. Thus I grew up isolated and not allowed to travel until sanctions were partially lifted. Today, by your argument, those who refused to interact with us then, were wrong.
It is the issue of sanctions on Syria, Iran, and North Korea. Should we be actively trying to visit, tour, and ameliorate the conditions of the average citizen? In practice, the answer varies from place to place; but surely there is one over-riding principle applicable to all?
My point is that the Cuban leaders play Canada’s heart strings with much skill. Obviously they are better at it than say that North Korea bunch or for that matter the old Afrikaaners who ran South Africa when we were more hated than the Cubans.
In practice I know of no Americans from California to Iowa who care a whit about Cuba. There are so many irrational places and people out there, why bother to be bothered by any or all of them. At least that is how most of the folk in the USA opine—and keep in mind I lived there for 20 years and still go back often.
Only one mining lawyer from the mining company that lost the nickel mines in Cuba to Sherrit once told me: “The Canadians do not want normal international relations with Cuba to resume. For when they do, we are ready to move in a take back our mine and lost profits. Those Canadian profit too much by things as they are now to let them change.”
Ah well; we can always blog about it. And leave it to the young to sort out. For sure the Pope is ineffective.
Hence he replied as follows to me:
One thing I find is that when one person takes over another gov’t he becomes the same as the former…..power is intoxicating. No one likes to have a lack of control over his freedoms.
As to visiting these countries…..I personally think its a great idea to get a bit of perspective from their side as opposed to our own ideas, or our North American news.
I was in Iran last fall for business, and have a good contact there. I found the people there are the same as here. They want the same things we do. They bellyache about their gov’ts too.
I sat in the Canadian Consulate with my partner and the trade commissioner having a coffee and discussion, while the British Embasssy down the street was being ransacked. We didn’t know about it till we saw the news 3 hrs later.
Why the British and not the Canadian?….big question? In reality Britain has had a lot of control in Iran over the years. Canada none. That is the real reason for the disparity. Iran doesn’t have a bone to pick with us.
I am amazed at how our own views are often held as the gospel, especially when we have never tried to walk in the other guys shoes, to see why he thinks the way he does.
Sanctions against these countries causes death,destruction and hardship for the people that have no control over anything. The guy you really want to get is the last one to feel the pain and lose control.
We very much need to visit and do what we can to help out and foster friendship with those in isolation. Its a real eyeopener when a Cuban can’t understand that poverty in Canada is a reality if you only make $20,000/year. If he travelled here and seen what we pay for property tax, income tax etc., he would understand us.
Creating sanctions, cause hardship for those people that really can’t do anything about it. In turn it causes them to have hard feelings for those who sanction them. From that we get a vicious cycle of hatred, control, and outright war.
If we would apply ages old biblical principles to our dealings with other countries, and each other, we would all be better off.
Yes sending the Pope over there is a joke…..he would have done his job if he had raked Raul and Fidel over the coals. But then isn’t the Roman Church also a central control over peoples lives?
Gives me the idea that they understand each other quite well.
Thats another 10 cents worth
Mr. Caldwell: I’ve just read your article on Mining Digest in regards of Sherrit Mining in Cuba. Mr. Caldwell: I myself a Cuban born geologist worked for 5 and a half years in Moa nickel laterite deposits. Those deposits are known since Columbus but didn’t were into production until the 50s first in Nicaro, in the late 50s Moa Bay Mining began to build the old plant that went into production in the mid 60s. During the 70s and 80s a huge investment was made in Moa some say 7 billions by URSS. In 1990 when the URSS disappeared Sherrit came in and save Fidel. Without a significative investment just modern equipment and organization. Sherrit does not, repeat does not take into account its responsibility of the huge deforestation and damage to the environment including soil erosion. It’s a real case to sue a foreign country and its nationals for environmental damages. Those SOBs. in Sherrit does not give a dam about Cuba, just profits. That’s the kind of government that Castro has maintained for over half a century with the complicity of many Canadian governments. But some day justice will prevail. Thank you for telling the truth.
Jack: I’ve been working on two issues on Cuban mining: One is the environmental disaster on Moa and Nicaro Laterite mines in the NE part of the Island, Number two is the possibility of an oil spill of the Scarabeo platform exploration drilling and possibly production in the NW coast of Cuba that could affect SE Florida beaches plus the Bahamas. There’s a contradiction in this administration on one side it gives a “carte blanche” to Repsol to dril and on the other hand won’t let US companies drill in the west coast of Florida even do geophysics.The price of fuels here in the US has doubled since this guy enter the scene. The environmentalists cowboys had kidnapped most of the power in this administration. There’s no energy policy everything it’s politics.
ImI am a Cuban and I really wish that this article falls in the hands of every Cuban inside Cuba. I do thank you for your words and you are 100% right. Castro love to criticize every country but won’t talk about his multiples mistakes in Cuba that have totally crash the economic in Cuba.
We always heard in Cuba that all the foreigners Companies with business in Cuba pay the right salary to Cuba Goberment for each worker but Cuba Goberment is the one who pay to them and they paid them in Cuban pesos and a way lower rate that this companies actually paid to the Goberment for them.