Sydney, October 12 (RHC/Worker’s Weekly)--The Communist Party of Australia has expressed its sorrow at the loss of lives and devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew as it passed through the Caribbean and has asked for stepped up assistance and solidarity with Haiti and Cuba.

In a statement by its Central Committee Secretariat, the Australian Communist Party said that the long-suffering nation of Haiti had been particularly hard hit, where nearly one million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and cholera threatens the population. Haiti’s plight cries out for the greatest commitment of solidarity, says the statement, which regrets that given the track record of relief assistance by the developed countries, there is little cause for optimism. Aid pledged by wealthy donor countries never reached the people of Haiti in the years following the 2010 earthquake when some 200,000 people are estimated to have died.

In contrast, notes the Communist Party of Australia’s communiqué, Cuba and Venezuela have already expressed their solidarity with the Haitian people in impressive practical ways, by sending medical brigades resources.

The communiqué charges that while Hurricane Matthew has been a curse on the people of the Caribbean, it has revealed yet another strength of Cuban society and its socialist system: there were no casualties in Cuba arising from the storms.

The Communist Party of Australia’s statement ends by demanding of the Australian government the most generous assistance possible to the people of Haiti and a break from the self-interested “boomerang aid” practices of the past.