Castro blames U.S. for missing migrants

AP - Yahoo ^ | 8/26/05 | Anita Snow - AP

[NormsRevenge]

HAVANA (AP) - Cuban leader Fidel Castro claimed Friday that U.S. policies were responsible for the latest tragedy to befall Cubans trying to reach American shores - 31 people believed killed in the Florida Straits.

The Cuban are missing and feared dead after their overcrowded boat capsized, officials said.

President Fidel Castro appeared on state-run television to point the finger at an American law that allows Cubans to apply for permanent residency if they reach the U.S., saying it encourages dangerous, illegal migration.

"Lives have been lost for the last 40 years since they created that law," he said, referring to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. "This policy is absurd."

But the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, the American mission here, rejected the Cuban government's statement, calling it "a cynical attempt to deflect blame from itself."

"Those who died did so fleeing Cuba's political repression and government-inflicted impoverishment," the Interests Section said in a statement distributed to international journalists.

According to Castro, it's the U.S. policy that has created a lucrative business in which traffickers charge up to $10,000 per Cuban migrant.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Wednesday suspended the search for the missing Cubans, which began after a merchant vessel rescued three people north of Matanzas, Cuba, three days earlier. No one else was found.

The survivors, two women and a man, were being treated in Cuba for burns and dehydration after five days at sea. The U.S. Interests Section complained in its response Friday that local American diplomats had not been allowed to interview the survivors.

A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said earlier this week that at least 200 people are known to have died in attempts to reach the United States by sea in the past five years. Many more have likely perished.

[NormsRevenge]

How many have perished in his prisons?

[Doogle]

yeah yeah yeah....and Saddam blamed missing Iraqis on dung beetle's.



Doogle

[359Henrie]

But your Paradise has nothing to do with this?

[wizardoz]

I suppose battered women's shelters are to blame for all those divorces too.

[goldstategop]

ROFL! Cuba's Communist dictator has the nerve to blame us for consequences stemming from his own socialist policies. If Cuba weren't so heavily guarded by his goons, the island would have been emptied of most of its population by now. No wonder the fortune few risk their lives to escape a place in which there is literally no hope life will get better.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[SteveMcKing]

I bet he'll also blame us for the missle that blows him to pieces, right after we're done squashing terrorists all over the world.

[bitt]

why would he blame me?? I don't miss his steenkin migrants...

[NordP]

Is he sure he doesn't blame George Bush? and not just the U.S.?

It's all the rage, you know (/sarcasm)

[ConorMacNessa]

Has he given them any incentive to stay?

[Doogle]

...or was it giant spiders?


Doogle

[Peace will be here soon]

Well Fidel, it goes like this. Your country is such a rathole that people are willing to risk their lives to escape it ( you ).

What is the world going to be like without this guy? tick, tick, tick...

I just hope when he breathes his last, that the people erupt and finally free themselves from the communist knife held to their throats.

Wouldn`t that be a sight to see.

[ChristianDefender]

***President Fidel Castro appeared on state-run television to point the finger at an American law that allows Cubans to apply for permanent residency if they reach the U.S., saying it encourages dangerous, illegal migration. ***

Not Bad Castro... This law should not be applied from now on esp. for illegal Mexicans, Arabs and other things related to Islam...

[martin_fierro]

Castro blames U.S. for (insert any malady since the 1950s)

[river rat]

I suspect that most of the folks still there, are incapable of surviving in any other form of existence....

They have had cradle to grave communism for too many decades --- to have retained much ambition or rebellion...

Communism tends to reduce everyone and everything to the lowest common denominator....

Semper Fi

[Rosemont]

I'm surprised Commie Castro didn't enlist the help of his buddy Chris Dodd to carry the water for him on this one.

[oyez]

The only thing Castro cares about those people is how he can use them for propaganda.

[Peace will be here soon]

Well, there are still a few left that want a better life, because they are still taking that chance to come to the U.S......the hard way.

Once they stopped coming in rafts and converted "truck boats", then I would say there is no hope for them.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

So, does this mean Fiedel is against Mexican illegals?

[river rat]

Chris Dodd and his buddy Ted "the swimmer" Kennedy --- are two worthless POS that should volunteer to go to Cuba and live in their ideal government controlled state....

Semper Fi