More stuff that’s our fault
Photo by Tom Charron/Miami Herald
Miami-Dade fire-rescue personnel assist Cuban migrants
who landed Friday on Adams Key.
While news services are fixated on Pakistan, and while everyone floats new conspiracy theories about the murders there, a new surge is happening on our own southern border – 50 refugees from Castro’s Cuba have landed on Florida beaches this last week. And of course, it’s the US “wet foot, dry foot” policy to blame according to the Cuban government (Miami Herald link);
As the Cuban government blamed U.S. policy Friday for an uptick in the number of Cubans leaving the island and disputed the number of dead in recent drownings off its coast, the top U.S. Coast Guard official in Miami called on exiles to denounce the illegal voyages.
Rear Admiral David W. Kunkel said the Coast Guard has patrol boats and cutters looking for migrants constantly. “We have federal, state and local help. But there’s a link missing.”
That link, he said, is the local community.
”They are not working with us. I know that’s rather blunt, but the fact remains that these smugglers are being financed by desperate families,” he said. “The only safe way is if we all work together.”
I guess it’s too much to ask that we expect the Cuban government to treat their people with a measure of decency, ya know, things like stop throwing them in prison for having opinions and for writing the truth about Cuba. Then maybe folks won’t want to leave. Of course the Cubans claim to be helping and protecting their people, but those danged Cuban exiles in Miami keep sending money to the poor folks in Cuba and tempting them to make the dangerous voyage here.
Granma, the Communist Party daily, the Cuban government blamed Miami news outlets, including The Miami Herald, for publishing reports of 25 suspected dead in an attempted escape Dec. 22.
The Cuban government said the boat was in distress and Cuban Border Guard troops detained a Cuban on land who said he was part of a group that included women and children who were in trouble at sea.
”As a result of the ground patrol, 26 persons were detained [19 men and seven women], accompanied by two minors, both 9 years old,” the report in Granma noted.
The Cuban government insisted that the sea search was a rescue operation that turned up two dead, identified as Yosvani Vera Alvarez, 29, and Zuleica RodrÃguez Pérez, 43.
The Cuban government denies having chased the boat — as Florida family members of some of the Cubans said earlier this week.
The government blamed the United States’ ”wet foot/dry foot” policy that allows Cubans who reach U.S. shores to remain in America.
Marc Masferrer writes at Uncommon Sense about the 25 assumed dead despite what the Cuban government says.
Beats me why Cubans are leaving that workers’ paradise – especially since we know it’s a wonderland of literacy and health care. What else could those Cubans want, for Pete’s sake?
Robert M at Babalu Blog outlines the problem;
Would increasing the number of annual visas for Cubans help? Sure, only if Cuba cooperated, which we know isn’t possible.
Encourage neighboring countries to help the U.S. deal with the number of Cubans who want to leave? Sure, but they’re more interested in maintaining relations with the castros than help Cubans attain freedom.
Rear Admiral Kunkel wants us to “work together”. A noble suggestion and idea, but one that comes with more than its share of issues and complexities that can’t just be pinned on one group of people (such as Cuban exiles).
A much easier solution is for the Cuban government to throw open their prisons and have real democratic elections and elect a government that works for the people instead of a few lucky enough to be born into the communist aristocracy. It’s inevitable, it’s happened everywhere in the world – the communists are just prolonging the agony.
Category: Foreign Policy, Politics
