ANTI-U.S. CLASHES SWEEP MIDEAST
The wave of attacks
against U.S. diplomatic missions continues in the Middle East, following the deadly bombing of the country’s embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Demonstrations over an anti-Islamic video in Yemen and Egypt, where a protester confronts riot police outside the U.S. embassy, have led to the temporary closure of Canada’s embassy in Cairo.
OTTAWA — The deadly wave of attacks against U.S. diplomatic missions flared in the Middle East on Thursday, prompting the temporary closing of Canada’s embassy in Egypt over security concerns.
Angry demonstrations over an anti-Islam video already have occurred in Egypt and Yemen, and officials theorize that well-armed Libyan extremists hijacked a similar protest in Benghazi and killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The U.S. put all of its diplomatic missions overseas on high alert, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered an explicit denunciation of the video as the administration sought to pre-empt further turmoil at its embassies and consulates.
“The United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video,” she said before a meeting with the foreign minister of Morocco at the State Department. “We absolutely reject its content and message.
“To us, to me personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible,” Clinton said. “It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose: to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage.”
Meanwhile, a former diplomat who oversaw security for all Canadian diplomatic staff and missions says the protests have highlighted the sensitive balance between keeping envoys safe and locking them in fortified compounds.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s office confirmed Canada’s embassy, which is near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo had been closed for the day.
“As a security precaution, and to ensure the protection of Canadian staff, we have closed our embassy in Cairo for the day,” spokesman Rick Roth said in a statement.
“We take the safety of our personnel and our mission overseas very seriously. We are monitoring events closely and taking appropriate security measures.”
Daniel Livermore served as head of security and intelligence at the Foreign Affairs Department from 2002 to 2006.
He worked on a major Foreign Affairs study of security at Canadian diplomatic missions around the world, which prompted the Harper government to commit $450 million for upgrades in 2010.
Livermore said the Canadian Embassy in Cairo is a relatively new building, having been built only about 20 years ago, “but the standards that we used when we built the embassy were those that were in play at the time, and they wouldn’t be what we would build now.”
He cited the embassy’s location right on the street and its entrance design as problems.
But while acknowledging the need for security upgrades at some missions, Livermore firmly believed Canadian diplomatic missions in Egypt and around the world are safe.
“Even in the countries where you think the threat to Americans or American interests is severe, the threat to Canadians isn’t that high, and it never has been.”
While the recent wave of anti-U.S. violence may prompt some to call for significant upgrades in Canadian embassy security, Livermore said Canada should continue resisting the urge to put up figurative and literal walls between its diplomatic missions and local populations by building U.S.-style compounds.
Such an approach may make Canadian diplomats safer, he said, “but you get less mixing into communities.”
“Our job when we’re out in the field is to get to know the locals. It isn’t to hang around Canadians. You get to know the locals, you invite them over to your house and they invite you over, et cetera. You can’t do that when you’re in a compound.
“And the bottom line is there’s no such thing as an embassy that can be protected, whether it’s an American embassy or a Canadian embassy,” he said. “If there’s a crowd that’s big enough in a given a capital, that embassy will be overtaken.”
Livermore said temporarily closing the Canadian Embassy in Cairo was a prudent decision given the unknown risks — and one that is not at all unusual.
For example, the Canadian Embassy in Chile often closed temporarily in the 1980s when protesters took to the street to demand an end to dictator Augusto Pinochet’s rule.
“We used to get tear gas drifting in through the windows and what we did was the day of the protest, the embassy was closed,” he said. “The next day it was open or if there was something pretty difficult around, we’d stay closed and open a day later.
“Just closing the embassy for a couple of days isn’t going to kill anybody.”