José Latour

Sir:

As a Cuban Cana­dian author, I am con­cerned about how The Sun has reported and com­mented recent events that have taken place in Cuba.

In what regards the case of Cody LeCompte, I have two observations.

It is a mis­take to equate a gov­ern­ment with the peo­ple it rules. If the noto­ri­ously incom­pe­tent Com­mu­nist gov­ern­ment is inca­pable of expe­di­tiously apply­ing the laws and reg­u­la­tions it has enacted, the Cuban peo­ple is not to blame.

In sec­ond place, Cana­di­ans who spend their vaca­tions in Cuba should go to the For­eign Affairs web­page and search for travel to Cuba. There they will find that “Traf­fic acci­dents are a fre­quent cause of arrest and deten­tion of Cana­di­ans in Cuba. Acci­dents result­ing in death or injury are treated as crimes, and the onus is on the dri­ver to prove innocence.”

Con­cern­ing the case of Nicola Mas­trangelo and Joe Warmington’s August 7 col­umn, in which Susan Somers and Derek Scott recount their per­sonal expe­ri­ences, it seems rea­son­able to remind your read­ers that gen­er­al­iza­tions can be fair or unfair.

Ms. Somers advises Cana­di­ans to “Stay away. [Cubans] are taught from the time they are born to manip­u­late tourists and their entire fam­ily will manip­u­late you.” Mr. Scott claims to “have started my own Face­book group called Do Not Trust The Island Of Cuba (sic).”

Those gen­er­al­iza­tions are unfair. Should the Cuban media pub­lish com­ments claim­ing that Cana­di­ans are taught from the time they are born to behave like Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, or that all Cana­dian Air Force colonels are mur­der­ers and rapists because it is alleged that a Cana­dian Air Force colonel mur­dered two women and raped oth­ers, the Cuban media would be mak­ing unfair gen­er­al­iza­tions. I don’t think that other exam­ples are nec­es­sary to make my point.

I lived the first 62 years of my life in Cuba, met thou­sands of Cubans, and I never knew of one who mar­ried a for­eigner to get out of the island. Some do that, no doubt about it, but it is an insignif­i­cant minor­ity. Nobody I know taught their chil­dren to manip­u­late tourists.

The com­ments made by Ms. Somers and Mr. Scott are offen­sive to mil­lions of decent and prin­ci­pled Cubans who would never pre­tend to love a for­eigner to get mar­ried and escape. On the other hand, in some mar­ried cou­ples a spouse finds, after a few months, that he or she is dis­ap­pointed and wants to get a divorce. Maybe the hus­band of Ms. Somers and the wife of Mr. Scott were dis­il­lu­sioned with their spouses.

Finally, in my expe­ri­ence most mar­riages between peo­ple from dif­fer­ent cul­tures end in divorce. In 20^th cen­tury Cuba, hun­dreds if not thou­sands of mar­riages between cit­i­zens of ex-Communist East Euro­pean coun­tries ended in divorce. Cana­di­ans plan­ning to marry for­eign­ers should indeed make sure that they are mak­ing the right choice.

I would be most grate­ful if The Sun pub­lishes my letter.

Regards,

José Latour