Canadian abondoned in Kenya, while gov't officials go MIA and do nothing

The story of Canadian citizen Suaad Hagi Mohamud trapped in Kenya is shameful enough, but the pathetic reaction of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan simply adds insult to injury.

Here’s what happened.

Back in May, Mohamud – who lives in Toronto – was visiting friends and family in Kenya. When it was time for her to come home, airport officials in Nairobi said that Mohamud’s passport photo did not look like her, claiming that she was an imposter.

Even after Mohamud showed all of her ID – including other government documents, even a drugstore loyalty shopping card – Kenyan officials said Mohamud’s lips in person didn’t match those in her passport photo. (Some reports say the photo issue was a ruse, and really, Kenyan officials wanted a bribe. The silliness of the claims even had Kenyan officials ruminating that Mohamud was her own twin sister.)

When Mohamud’s case was then handed over to Canadian officials in Kenya, they did nothing. Mohamud’s Canadian passport was cancelled, she was charged with criminally falsifying her identity, and thrown in jail.

In order to end the ordeal, Mohamud volunteered for a DNA test to prove her identity and to show that she is indeed the mother of her teenage son (who was back in Toronto).

Even after the DNA result, Mohamud wasn’t free to come home, since her passport was cancelled. So she remained a woman without a country.

Finally last week, she was issued an emergency passport and allowed to travel home.

During this entire ordeal, the Canadian government did nothing – NOTHING – to help a Canadian citizen held hostage in a foreign country.

Van Loan – who as public safety minister is the Canadian equivalent of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano – dodged reporters and did nothing. Now, he has the nerve to announce a study to determine what went wrong. What went wrong? Mr. Van Loan, YOU are part and parcel of what went wrong.

Cannon – who as foreign affairs minister is the equivalent of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – then commissioned his own inquiry. Are these people serious? Just look in the mirror – there’s your answer.

Worst of all was Prime Minister Harper who, instead of aiding a Canadian in distress in a foreign land, gave this advice to all Canadian would-be travelers: “The Government of Canada does not control affairs in other countries. We do our best to aid those who are in various forms of difficulty, but ultimately we're not the sovereign government once people leave our territory.”

In other words, you are SOL. And this was the same week that former U.S. President Bill Clinton went to North Korea to rescue two American journalists. The contrast is startling.

This week, Harper not only said that his government would not apologize to Mohamud, but that he only learned of her case last week – even though it’s been making news for three months! This is as sad as Bush getting that memo about Osama bin Laden plotting to bomb the U.S., and then deciding to go golfing.

So what happened here? No need to wait for CYA government commissions. Either the Canadian government, as run by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, doesn’t care about Canadian citizens once they leave the country, or the Canadian government, under Harper’s Conservatives, only cares about some Canadians. Mohamud, after all, is a woman of color who was born in Somalia.

A letter to the editor in the Toronto Star even put it this way: “If hyphenated Canadians decide to go to obscure places in the world, they should do so at their peril.” (Ironically, the letter writer’s last name was McKenna, pegging him as a hyphenated Irish-Canadian.)

This is a sentiment that seems to permeate the highest levels of the current Canadian government. And a government that is so willing to toss one of its innocent citizens aside like this has clearly lost the right to govern.