They were stationed in Cuba and since then say they suffer from severe headaches, visual disturbances or nausea: 18 Canadian diplomats are suing their government, saying that new cases continue to be detected.
• Read also: The “Havana syndrome” torments diplomats
Officially, the Canadian authorities recognize 14 cases, the last in December 2018. According to the complainants there are nearly thirty.
And Paul Miller, a Toronto lawyer who represents diplomats claiming at least $ 28 million in damages, says “continue to receive appeals: we have very recent cases, from 2021.”
From a source close to the file, two cases are mentioned this year, which have led to hasty departures.
Always unexplained, these “health incidents”, as they are called by the American and Canadian administrations, appeared in Cuba in 2016.
Diplomats from both countries, some of whom say they heard very high-pitched sounds, began to complain of migraines, dizziness or nausea. Brain damage was diagnosed.
Since then, cases have been reported in China, Germany, Australia, Russia, Austria and even Washington. But, in the media, the expression “Havana syndrome” stuck.
“Weird vibrations”
A Canadian diplomat, who lived on the island for four years, recalls waking up one morning feeling dizzy and “. severe nosebleeds ”. “I had not had a nosebleed since I was a child,” she testifies, on condition of anonymity.
Then “the symptoms got much stronger” and “I realized that I was not able to continue working”.
Another said that she “started to feel strange vibrations in her ear, at about the same time each night”, a few weeks after arriving in Havana. Medically evacuated, she says she now has to wear glasses, she who had “never had any sight problem” before.
Attacks by radio waves, collective hysteria due to stress, the effect of chemicals sprayed against mosquitoes: various hypotheses have been raised by scientists, without reaching a definitive conclusion.
The Cuban authorities, for their part, deny any malevolence. “Neither the Cuban police, nor the FBI, nor the Royal Mounted Police of Canada have discovered evidence of attacks against diplomats in Havana despite important investigations”, assured in September the Academy of Sciences from Cuba.
In Washington, the file is far from over. In early November, Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged to “shed some light” on the matter, appointing two seasoned diplomats to coordinate the State Department’s response and ensure that any American reporting symptoms receives an investigation. appropriate medical care.
“Different” treatment
On the side of the Canadian diplomats concerned, we regret not benefiting from the same attention … and we wonder if the good understanding with Cuba did not work against them.
Because if relations between Cuba and the United States, apart from a brief interlude between 2014 and 2016, are marked by diplomatic tensions, those between Cuba and Canada are quite different: Ottawa has never severed ties with Havana, even after the revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959, and is historically the main supplier of tourists to the island.
“The (Canadian) ambassador told us all the time ‘There is no reason to think that Canadians could be affected”, thus suggesting that the Americans yes, but not the Canadians, “said a diplomat.
“Our biggest complaint is that we were not offered any help,” she adds, worrying that the embassy already wants to return to a full staff, after having halved in early 2019 .
Ottawa “made its relationship with Cuba a priority over its own citizens,” said another, recalling being ordered not to tell anyone, not even her personal doctor, about her symptoms.
Compared to the United States, the management of the problem has been “totally different”, sighs Paul Miller.
The US government “is doing everything it can to make sure (the diplomats affected) get treatment … and says it will try to find out what happened.” “Here the government says ‘we will do everything to take care of our diplomats’, but they did not.”
In a written response sent to AFP, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs assures us that it “takes the health, safety and security of Canadians very seriously” and “continues to monitor the health and safety of its diplomatic staff stationed in Havana “.