GRAHAM N. GREEN
Aug.8, 1999
This has not been a good year for supporters of the principle of "constructive engagement". From Cuba and China to Burma and North Korea, examples abound of the inevitable failing of such an ill-conceived policy when dealing with recalcitrant regimes more interested in staying in power than in the welfare of their people.
For Canadians, nowhere is this more apparent than in Cuba. Six years ago, the Christien government intensified contacts with Fidel Castro's regime as part of its "soft power" approach to diplomacy, in stark contrast to Washington's policy of isolating Cuba. Ottawa naively believed negotiation and exchanges, rather than coercion and embargoes, were the way to convince Castro to improve his human rights record and Cuban economy toward a more free-market system. This policy of constructive engagement culminated in a 1997 joint declaration calling for broader and deeper cooperation between Canada and Cuba. Lloyd Axworthy, the Foreign Affairs Minister, even boasted he had achieved more in five hours of talks with Castro last year than the United States had in 30 years of isolating the island.
That all seems pretty hollow now, as evidence mounts that Canada's policy of engaging the Havana regime has had little, if any, positive impact on human rights in Cuba. Castro's Cuba remains the only dictatorship in the Americas with no freedom of the press, no free trade unions and more than 300 political prisoners in jail, including four who were sentenced last March despite Jean Christien personal appeal for their release. As Human Rights Watch noted recently, Cuba has reinforced its repressive laws during the three years, the precise period of Canada's broadened and deepened cooperation with Havana.
In China, things are not much better. The Clinton administration's "constructive strategic partnership" with Beijing has done little to improve the individual human rights of most Chinese or to enhance security in the region. Some of the leaders of the pro democracy movement imprisoned after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations remain in jail more than a decade later. Three democracy campaigners of the China Democratic Party were sentenced to lengthy prison terms last December. More recently, the Chinese authorities have banned the Falun Gong spiritual movement and sent 1,200 government officials who were members of the sect to "reeducation" schools. Beijing has also stepped up its threats against Taiwan by aiming another 100 missiles at the island, announcing it has the capacity to build neutron bombs and warning Taipei against any attempts to declare independence. A U.S. congressional report accuses China of stealing American nuclear secrets and missile technology. Meanwhile, Beijing has failed to dissuade Pyongyang from developing its own missile technology or from test-firing a rocket over Japan last year, two events that have increased tensions in the region. (Washington's own efforts in North Korea have been equally unsuccessful despite massive food aid, more than $4.5 billion (US) in fuel oil per year and commitment to build two light-water nuclear reactors in the cormtry.)
It's not just Western countries that fail in their efforts at constructive engagement. Two years ago, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations allowed Burma to join, in hope engagement would convince the military regime in Rangoon to ease its repressive rule. It hasn't worked, as Amnesty International makes clear in three reports on Burmese mistreatment of farmers and ethnic minorities. Ihe International Labour Organization has condemned Burma for forcing more than 800.000 people into what it calls "a contemporary form of slavery;" And then, of course, there is the continued harassment of Aung San Suu Kyi,the Nobel laureate and leader of Burma's pro-democracy movement.
The ineffectiveness of constructive engagement when dealing with totalitarian states should not be surprising. Engagement is not an end in itself, but a part of a process to achieve wider objectives. For democracies such as Canada, the objective is to effect positive change in oppressive regimes, and we are willing to offer carrots to them in the hope they will realize the benefits of improved human rights performance. For the regimes, the objective is to get those carrots. Full stop. They have no intention of making any fundamental changes to the way they govern, fearing that more democracy would weaken their grip on power. When the pressure to change becomes too intense, they are willing to sacrifice the engagement process to protect their interests. This is a lesson we would do well to learn ourselves. Objectives must take precedence over process. Instead of sacrificing our objectives for the sake of the process, it's time to find a new process. Constructive engagement with dictatorships isn't working.
(Graham N Green, a former diplomat, is a freelance writer in Ottawa.)