In a little over a week's time, the Caribbean was hit by two Category 4 hurricanes -- Gustav and Ike. Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Turks and Caicos were hit extremely hard by the storms. As Americans, we have an obligation to help our Caribbean neighbors. We have to increase our aid to the Caribbean substantially, and help in the recovery effort. While there has been overwhelming bipartisan support for extending a helping hand to our neighbors, there is a group of right-wing extremists who are determined to hijack the issue to advance their failed policies on Cuba.
Cuba's infrastructure, neglected for five decades by a regime more preoccupied with oppressing its people than building roads and houses, immediately collapsed. According to news reports, over 600,000 houses were either destroyed or damaged, and an estimated 2.6 million people were displaced.
Cubans are facing one of the country's worst humanitarian crises in decades, and they need our help. The $100,000 pledged by the Bush administration is tragically inadequate. Sadly, Cuban Americans yearning to help their struggling relatives on the island can't because of draconian restrictions imposed on them by the Bush administration and the extreme right wing of the community. The restrictions, put into place in 2004, limit the amount of money we can send to our Cuban relatives and how often we go visit them. The constraints have, for years, further divided families, and diminished our ability to help out dissident groups and foster civil society in Cuba.
After the hurricanes, the need to lift the restrictions has become even more urgent. We have a moral obligation to make sure that Cubans, abandoned by their cruel, self-serving government, get the help they need. This is a fundamental humanitarian call.
However, extremist Republicans and the Bush administration did not waste time in politicizing the Cuban people's suffering.
Instead of offering solutions, Miami Congressmen Mario and Lincoln Diaz Balart resorted to the same vapid demagoguery that has alienated their constituents, and made them completely inept in Washington. Everyone knows that the Castro brothers are cruel tyrants; we all want a democratic government in Cuba. However, ranting about it will not bring about change in the island, and, in these times of crisis, it only makes things worse. The greatest impediment to the wellbeing of the Cuban people is the Cuban government itself. But this fact does not give us license to throw our hands in the air and not offer our help.
We need to lift the restrictions on travel and remittances immediately. Cuban Americans want to help their brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers who live in Cuba. Cubans have already suffered enough at the hands of the Castros' tyranny and nature's fury; they do not need the added burden of the ineffective policies of the Diaz-Balarts and the Bush Administration adding to their misery.
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