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Canada's brain-injured Cuba diplomats speak out about Ottawa's silence
[The Globe & Mail] For members of the tight-knit community of Canadian diplomats based in Havana, life became terrifying and disorienting last year ‐ and many of them, speaking to the media for the first time, say it has only become more aggravating since mysterious cases of brain injury forced them to return to Canada.Starting in the spring of 2017, a dozen embassy staff and their family members, including eight adults and four children, almost simultaneously began experiencing symptoms including gushing nosebleeds, ringing in the ears, fits of nausea, dizziness, incapacitating headaches and mental impairment, often striking most intensely in their homes late at night. Those affected represented about a third of the embassy staff. After a months-long struggle with the embassy to recognize their symptoms, and after receiving a battery of scans and tests, the diplomats were diagnosed by neurologists as having suffered brain injuries similar to a concussion, but without the physical trauma. This is the same "Havana syndrome" that disabled two dozen staff in the recently reopened U.S. embassy in the Cuban capital at around the same time. A year and a half after the initial symptoms, a group of the diplomats have broken their silence and spoken to The Globe and Mail about their frustrations in seeking treatment and recognition. While Washington has been outspoken in speculating that those brain injuries were caused by mysterious energy-weapon attacks by some foreign power, the Canadian diplomats have remained an obscure and largely unknown footnote. The U.S. victims have been subject to a very public investigation, while Ottawa has kept its case, and Canada’s multiagency investigation into it, largely quiet for what diplomats believe are strategic and organizational reasons. Posted by: Besoeker 2018-11-19 |
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