bout de papier, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2011) — Winter/Spring 2011 // Hiver/Printemps 2011, pp. 26–29
In this selection of documents, we depart from our usual practice of reprinting unpublished material from files at Library and Archives Canada. Instead, to complement the material elsewhere in this issue about Canada’s response to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 by the Red Army and forces from other Warsaw Pact nations, the items below first appeared in official publications of the Department of External Affairs. These convey the false impression that the Canadian government — and specifically the Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mitchell Sharp — reacted immediately and forthrightly to condemn the invasion. The speech goes so far as to suggest that the official statement to the press was issued on the day of the invasion rather than the next day. In fact, Sharp’s first reaction, as recorded by journalists who sought his immediate response to the events, was evidently un-briefed and distinctly un-bold. George Ignatieff, who was then Canada’s representative on the Security Council of the United Nations, later described Sharp’s comments then as “incredibly mild”. Sharp initially described the invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia
as “very disappointing…a great setback to the growing confidence in Europe and progress toward
an East-West detente”. The official statement issued on the following day, after a transatlantic telephone conversation with Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who was vacationing in Spain, and with greater awareness of developments in Czechoslovakia certainly conveyed a very different tone and aligned the government with the worldwide condemnation of what had taken place.
In fact, subsequent deeds (other than the welcoming of Czechoslovak refugees) also did not necessarily match the strong words. Although the statement and speech both refer to consultation with NATO allies, the government later scaled back Canada’s commitment to NATO, especially in Western Europe. Trudeau and Sharp apparently seemed more concerned about the maintenance of good relations with the Soviet Union and with continuation of détente than with the fate of Czechoslovakia and its people. Less than a year after Sharp’s speech in Winnipeg, Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko visited Ottawa. A planned visit by Trudeau to the Soviet Union in the autumn of 1970, which would have been the first by a western leader since the invasion, was postponed to May 1971 because of the October Crisis, not concern about how it would be seen in Europe. In January 1971, Canada signed an industrial and scientific cooperation agreement with the USSR. As Jack Granatstein and Bob Bothwell observe in their study of Trudeau’s foreign policy, ‘it was business as usual once more”.
Thus, the documents below represent how the Canadian government, and particularly its foreign minister, wanted to be seen by others, especially the Canadian public. As such, they are excellent examples of the craft of the Information Division of the Department of External Affairs. Historians and other commentators may be forgiven for looking beyond these texts to assess Canadian policies.
Secretary of State for External Affairs [Mitchell Sharp], Press Statement, 21 August 1968
[as quoted in External Affairs, XX, 10 (October 1968), p. 398]
The Canadian Government views the invasion of Czechoslovakia with shock and dismay. We condemn this use of force. All Canadians feel the deepest concern for the courageous people of Czechoslovakia in this hour of trial.
The invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia constitutes a flagrant breach of the principle of non-intervention to which the Soviet Union itself professes to subscribe. It is also a tragedy for all peoples who prize human freedom and national independence and Iam confident that its significance will not be lost on the people of Eastern Europe and even the Soviet Union.
We are engaged in consultations on the developing situation with other interested governments in the respective capitals, at the United Nations, and in the North Atlantic Council. As far as the Atlantic alliance is concerned, I am sure that all of us will be anxious to keep in mind our ultimate goal of seeking a, durable East-West accommodation, but no one can doubt that the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia constitutes a serious setback to a rational dialogue.
We are in continuing touch with our Embassy in Prague and are taking such measures as are available to us to ensure the safety of all Canadian citizens there.
Canada Assesses the Invasion of Czechoslovakia. Speech by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, the Honourable Mitchell Sharp, to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Winnipeg, October 13, 1968.
Department of External Affairs, Information Division, Statements and Speeches, No. 68/16 [extract].
Europe has changed enormously in the last few years, and so has Canada. For this reason, when the present Government assumed office we immediately put in train a thoroughgoing review of several of the principal areas of Canadian foreign policy, including our relations with Europe. We want to determine for ourselves whether Canadian policies accord with contemporary conditions in Canada and the world, and whether we are using the most effective means of carrying those policies out.
As you know, these reviews have not yet been completed, and I am not, therefore, in a position to present any conclusions to you tonight. But when they are ready we shall be presenting our conclusions to Parliament and to the people for the fullest and frankest discussion.
In the meantime, however, let me assure you that, as our review proceeds, it necessarily takes account of events as they unfold. The invasion of Czechoslovakia, for example, has the greatest relevance both to our review of defence policy and our study of Canadian relations with Europe. Nor is our examination of this subject limited to the Canadian scene. We are considering with our allies in NATO the ramifications of the continuing Soviet military occupation of Czechoslovakia.
The invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union and its allies was a harsh and chilling reminder that we must still live with the legacies of the past – that the peaceful evolution of Europe toward détente, out of which entente might in due course emerge, is seen as intolerable by those to whom freedom is a threat and any change a counter-revolution. Yet, if any real and enduring understanding between East and West is to be achieved, there must be a transformation of attitudes. Unless that takes place there is little hope for the development of mutual understanding.
What sort of transformation is possible? We do not expect the abandonment of their social system by the Communist states. We have no intention of abandoning ours. Given these basic positions, we can hope for progress only through the slow development of confidence, based on genuine respect for differences. No Western country had any part in the course of reform which Czechoslovakia took at the beginning of this year. Knowing the risks they ran, and respecting the choices they would make, it would have been irresponsible and wrong to have sought to influence the Czechoslovak people in their course. We responded with friendship to their friendship freely offered. We never questioned their right or intention to retain their ties with the rest of Eastern Europe. We could only hope, as the Czechoslovaks did, that the Soviet Union would not find freedom and friendship intolerably inconsistent with the principles by which its own policies are governed.
Our hopes, and the hopes, as I have said, of all on both sides who believe that genuine East- West confidence and co-operation is possible, have been callously crushed. Thinking people must now ask themselves whether peaceful co-operation is really possible, when the Soviet Union, without the least justification and ignoring the basic principles of international law and of the United Nations Charter – the sovereign equality of states and their obligation to refrain from the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of others — is openly coercing Czechoslovakia by military occupation. In addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations last week, I reminded delegates that, less than two years ago, as a result of an initiative by the U.S.S.R. itself, the Assembly had declared, with no dissenting voice, that: “No state has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal affairs of any other state. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the state or against its political, economic and cultural elements, are condemned”.
But such principles, the Soviet Government itself now tells us, are of no importance when the U.S.S.R. decides that its own political interests are better served without them. “Nobody,” we are told, “will be allowed to wrest a single link from the socialist chain.” The metaphor is unfortunately all too apt.
I told the United Nations General Assembly that, for our part, Canada cannot and will not accept the claim that some alleged community of interest, be it political or cultural or economic, can ever under any circumstances entitle one country to interfere in the internal affairs of another. We recognize no “spheres of influence”. States have every right to their legitimate security interests, but not at the expense of the sovereignty and independence of others. States have every right to protect their own social and political and economic systems, but not at the expense of others whose choice is different from theirs. The principle of non-intervention is absolutely fundamental to international relations. If it is not observed, there can be no confidence between states and therefore no relations which can go beyond fear and mistrust.
When the invasion of Czechoslovakia occurred, Canada condemned it unequivocally. On the day of the invasion, I summoned the representatives of the invading powers and informed them clearly and in strong terms of our condemnation. We and like-minded fellow-members of the Security Council also requested that the Council be called into emergency session. On the following day, August 22, Canada and six other co-sponsors introduced a resolution which affirmed the sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity of Czechoslovakia, condemned the interference of the U.S.S.R. and other members of the Warsaw Pact in the internal affairs of Czechoslovakia and called upon them to withdraw forthwith; and called upon members of the United Nations to exercise their diplomatic influence on the invading countries to bring about prompt implementation of the resolution.
When this resolution was vetoed by the U.S.S.R., Canada introduced. a further resolution requesting the despatch of a special United Nations representative to Prague to seek the release and ensure the personal safety of the Czechoslovak leaders then under Soviet arrest. Happily, by the next day, we learned that the intentions of this initiative had been achieved, largely through the courage of the Czechoslovak leaders themselves.
The harsh reality remains, however, that hundreds of thousands of foreign troops, with their armour and aircraft, remain on Czechoslovak soil. In many ways the situation now is more complex and difficult than it was in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. We have no right, any more than has the Soviet Union, to interfere in the internal affairs of Czechoslovakia. It would certainly be no service to the Czechoslovak Government or people for us to behave in such a way as to lend substance to the empty Soviet claims that Czechoslovakia was acting as a tool of Western interests. Nor, indeed, would it be in the interests of the West or of Czechoslovakia to ignore another reality, which is that, ultimately, only the Czechoslovak people can work out their own destiny. I am confident, nevertheless, that their ordeal will end in their triumph.
What then can we do? Certainly we cannot behave as if nothing has happened. Certainly the realities Ihave mentioned demand a policy designed to meet them.
The first steps were obviously to provide on an emergency basis for those refugees from Czechoslovakia who sought to come to Canada. Circumstances so far have been different from those in Hungary in 1956, so that comparably large numbers of refugees have not left Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, we took measures promptly as soon as it became clear that even a relatively small flow was about to begin, in accordance with the Government’s declared policy that all those Czechoslovak refugees who want to come to Canada will be welcome.
We had also to consider how best to demonstrate in concrete form the condemnation we had expressed of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The representatives of the invading countries have sought to maintain that their action should have no effect on their relations with Canada and that, in effect, their aggression was nobody’s business but their own. I have made it clear to them that this is far from our view, that our relations have inevitably been severely strained and that they cannot be restored, at least until the occupying forces are withdrawn from Czechoslovakia.
Much of the substance of those relations has been in exchange of visits by individuals and delegations, and in the exchange of information in various technical and scientific fields. Where these exchanges have had political content, it is clearly inopportune that they should continue at this time. Nor would it be consistent with our policy to embark on new projects for the present. Similarly, since the Canadian people’s attitude towards the U.S.S.R. and its allies has been shaken by the aggression against Czechoslovakia, a number of visits and exchanges arranged privately have been postponed or cancelled on the initiative of the Canadian organizations concerned or on the advice of the Government.
This has not meant that all normal dealings with the Warsaw Pact countries have been brought to a halt. In the long run, it is in no one’s interest to eliminate contact with the people of those countries. Where private organizations or individuals decide that, for various reasons, they wish to continue existing arrangements, it is not the Government’s policy to put obstacles in their way. Many such arrangements, such as academic exchanges between universities or cultural events, are of long standing and could be re-established only with difficulty if they were now interrupted. The same is true of certain of the purely technical and scientific programmes of a longterm nature in which certain official agencies take part.
In a far broader sense, we must also bear in mind that the evolution of recent years toward co-operation instead of confrontation between East and West is our best hope – and perhaps our only hope – of eliminating violence from international relations.
I spoke at the beginning of the new dynamism in European affairs and the possibilities it seemed to open up. I have spoken further of the blow which the U.S.S.R. has dealt to international confidence, without which East-West dialogue can lead nowhere and we shall remain trapped in the blind alleys of the past. The deep sense of insecurity which Moscow has revealed by its action does not bode well for any progress toward even minor East- West understandings in Europe in the foreseeable future. We know that what we have been able to do and can do in future will be of little direct help to the Czechoslovaks. We welcome those who choose to come here in the bitter knowledge that those who stay in Czechoslovakia must find their way largely alone. Our policy must not make their task more difficult.
But we have a task which is also difficult and which, in the long run, is of vital importance for human survival. Five years and more of patient work seem for the moment to have been wasted. The prospects for the future seem dim. But history does not end with the arrival of the Red Army, and we should be wrong to conclude that all is lost. Our task is to find a way back to rational and constructive dialogue, without sacrifice of our principles. We have no choice but to live with the world as it is, but we shall have no real hope if we do not persist in the search for ways to change it peacefully. After what has occurred, it remains to be seen whether the Soviet leaders are capable of seeing far enough beyond their own immediate fears to grasp this fundamental fact.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2011) — Winter/Spring 2011 // Hiver/Printemps 2011, pp. 26–29. Read the rest of this issue →
