Crime in the Caribbean Sea Verse 1 A woman writing by candlelight, With fear and fire in she hand, Not from war, not from hurricane, But from the cruelty of man. She say, “Look at my old people, Waiting on medicine that never come, One more night of chest pain, One more morning and another one gone.” No trumpet sound, no headline loud, No breaking news crew by the bed, Just an old man staring through the dark, And a policy wishing him dead. They call it pressure from foreign hands, They hide the crime in diplomacy, But when death travel through hunger and pills, That is murder by policy. Chorus This is not a crisis, This is a crime, Slow death written Line by line. Cuba crying, Who hearing she plea? Murder happening In the Caribbean Sea. Verse 2 A mother standing over a child, In a ward where the power gone thin, Praying the machine keep breathing, Praying the darkness don’t win. Incubator waiting on fuel, Fuel blocked by decree and spite, And somewhere far in a polished room, Men sign papers and sleep at night. Tell me what name we calling this, When baby breath depend on a pen, When ocean distance only ninety miles, But mercy cannot travel in? Tell me what law is holy enough, To justify a child in dread, When empire talk of freedom loud, And leave the newborn near to dead. Chorus This is not a crisis, This is a crime, Slow death written Line by line. Cuba crying, Who hearing she plea? Murder happening In the Caribbean Sea. Verse 3 And what of the doctors who served the world, Who crossed the seas when others fled, Who healed in plague and storm and dust, Now short of gauze and surgical thread? What of the scientists who built vaccines, Out of discipline, pain and will, Only to face another wall, Another tightening, another kill? Food ship frightened, banks blocked up, Milk and grain held out of reach, And every empty plate in Cuba, Is a sermon no tyrant can preach. Do not tell me this accidental, Do not tell me “these things occur,” This hunger have a signature, This suffering have an author. Bridge Who will answer for the children? Who will answer for the old? Who will answer for the silence Bought and bartered, weak and cold? Journalists with frightened ink, Governments with guarded tongue, How much longer will you study death Before the truth is sung? Final Chorus This is not a crisis, This is a crime, Slow death written Line by line. Cuba crying, Who hearing she plea? Murder happening In the Caribbean Sea. This is not a crisis, This is a crime, Punishment stretched Across the time. And history watching All humanity, While murder happening In the Caribbean Sea. Outro From Havana to Santiago, The sorrow heavy, deep and long, If the world still have a conscience, Let it answer with a song.
