Helping Cubans and others is a Caribbean necessity

THE EDITOR, Madam:

It was once unlawfully forbidden by the Cayman Islands government, as well as their owners, the United Kingdom, to help Cuban migrants passing through the islands. Not with water, food, fuel or medicine, nothing at all, under threat of arrest. Local people were shocked by this and helped anyway, me included.

Despite a great fear of the sea with many, I ventured one evening with another local activist, on a boat to supply some Cubans who had been turned away in a flimsy boat, unlikely to last many miles. There were men, women and older children of all ages.

Brave, wet souls seeking freedom.

I was frightened and seasick the entire time, dry mouth and all, worse when I was ordered to take the wheel for the first time in my life. The later discovery of a failed bilge pump and a huge amount of water on-board left me nightmares for many a night. My companion, an old sea dog, shrugged it off.

The looming, grey marine police boat came by and left after a reminder that they had children too.

Food, cases of water and other things were passed to the vessel using ropes, all the while trying to avoid the hull being pierced by their log outriggers. Their faces could not be seen in the darkness but they began to sing for comfort before disappearing over the horizon. We barely made it ashore where we had to drain our boat from the hundreds of gallons that had accumulated. There but for the grace of God.

People of the Caribbean need not go to these lengths to help desperate Haitians, hungry families, children without education or desperate single mothers. They are right on your doorstep, if you care to look.

It has become a regular thing in the Caribbean where charitable groups, foundations and the diaspora have become used to filling gaps in society left by government. Attempts have been made, but there are more pressing needs like gigantic corporate loans before islandwide power outages or a $500 million distribution from an oversight bank entity, forgetting the many who lost deposits in Jamaica.

You will be told that it is a question of priorities as if that is the end of the matter. It is not. People first.

PETER POLACK