Posted on 08/26/2005 8:33:18 PM PDT by 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.
This is not a shop and sometimes I wonder where their respective hands are.
I wonder where their respective hands are.
---
lol.. who has the biggest smile? :)
We just can't seem to get the point across the these destitute people that life is actually better under Fidel's communist dictatorship.
We must work harder at it..../s
Yes, actually these poor souls are actually risking their lives to come to America to tell us that paradise under dictatorship rule can be shared and they are so humane that they are willing to die to tell the rest of the world of their heaven on earth.
I just thought I would lie and beat Castro to the punch.
Oh, say it isn't so! /s
Americas failure to eliminate Castro over the decades make me believe that yes the United States military does in fact need a boogie man to keep its funding up high.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.