THE EDITOR, Sir:
While our eyes are affixed to the situation that is now taking place in the Middle East, there is an impending humanitarian crisis that is about to take shape some 90 miles from the shores of Jamaica with our neighbours from the island of Cuba. Everyone, including CARICOM, seems to be distracted, oblivious of the new restrictions put in place by the USA to further cut hard currency inflows to Cuba, with the hope of crippling the Castro regime and inflict more hardship on the people of Cuba.
CARICOM and other international bodies need to be proactive in this situation and not be caught off guard as in the Haitian situation, which has caused an influx of Haitians into many Caribbean islands. It is the people of Cuba who must determine their destiny not President George W. Bush. A dangerous precedent has already taken root whereby the USA now sees it fit to shape the agendas of sovereign nations. One is then forced to agree with the notion that it is he who is the most dangerous weapon of mass distraction and destruction (WMD).
Cuba, despite their regime and the 43-year-old American embargo, has been a model society in terms of its education and health systems. While being ten times the size of Jamaica and operating on meagre resources, Cuba has managed to achieve 100% literacy and has a life expectancy that is even higher than that of the USA. Their areas of science and biotechnology can compete with that of any developed nation.
As a Caribbean Community, we simply must not allow our neighbour to be destroyed any further because of George Bush's myopia and arrogance. CARICOM must become more than a talk shop and draw from the experience of the Cuban people's will and determination to progress despite the odds. Jamaicans must never feel that the situation that now obtains in Iraq, Haiti and Cuba can never reach our shores.
We must act with the urgency that this matter deserves and send a clear message, that starving a nation, cutting off their medical supplies and making life more onerous for the masses as a means of destabilising their government is cruel, vindictive and backward. But then one only has to take comfort in the fact that the mighty can also fall.
I am etc.,
MARK A. McKENZIE
markm68_jm@yahoo.com
43 Charlemont Drive
Kingston 6
