Cabinet Minister Alden McLaughlin, who is also the chairman of Cayman’s Human Rights Committee, said he met with hunger striker Luis Luarca for nearly two hours last Thursday.
‘I listened to everything he had to say,’ Mr. McLaughlin said. ‘It was very amicable meeting.’
Mr. Luarca began his hunger strike on 30 January to protest what he says is a lack of respect for human rights in Cuba and the Cayman Islands. He has made several demands in order to end the protest, including monetary compensation from the Cayman Islands government for his failure to secure employment here.
‘He wants compensation by government going back many, many years,’ Mr. McLaughlin said.
Mr. Luarca also demands an immediate improvement of the human rights situation in Cuba and the Cayman Islands.
Another original demand to meet with Pope Benedict the XVI has since been dropped.
Mr. Luarca has lodged an official complaint with Cayman’s Human Rights Committee for being denied a security guard job at the Health Services Authority. Mr. Luarca, who says he was a doctor in Cuba before coming to the Cayman Islands as a refuge 1994, has been denied the right to practice medicine here.
Mr. McLaughlin said he has urged Mr. Luarca to end his hunger strike and give the Human Rights Committee an opportunity to do its work.
One of Mr. Luarca’s objectives in starting the hunger strike was to highlight the human rights situation in the Cayman Islands, which Mr. McLaughlin said he has already achieved.
‘He has raised the profile of human rights in the Cayman Islands because of what he has done, regardless of the merits of what his complaints are,’ Mr. McLaughlin said.
Mr. Luarca has decided to seek legal aid to bring an court action against the Cayman Islands government in his efforts to receive monetary compensation, Mr. McLaughlin said.
‘I told him all of his objectives could be reached without the hunger strike.
‘He is not going to get resolution of this matter and a cheque in his hand next week, whether he continues the hunger strike or not,’ Mr. McLaughlin said. ‘If he wants to see a resolution to this matter, then he needs to say alive.’
Mr. McLaughlin said if the Human Rights Committee sees any human rights abuses with respect to Mr. Luarca, its report will say so.
If the report finds in Mr. Luarca’s favour, he will have a much better chance of being successful in his application for legal aid, and in being successful in any resulting legal action, Mr. McLaughlin noted.
‘I personally feel very sympathetic to his cause, regardless of the merits of his complaint,’ Mr. McLaughlin said. ‘He’s a human being and I have great compassion for him.’
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