Cuba Humanitarian Assistance

Pastors for Peace Construction Team Ignores Embargo and Travel Ban

2008-10-31T10:48:00.000-07:00

GRANMA
October 31, 2008

Solidarity Without a Visa: Pastors for Peace in Pinar del Rio

Once again members of the Pastors for Peace organization defy the US
blockade against Cuba, this time to help out with the recovery effort
in Pinar del Rio.

RONALD SUAREZ RIVAS

With the same determination that they have handled the most absurd and
brutal pressures of the US government to keep them from delivering
humanitarian aid to Cuba, members of the Pastors for Peace
organization have joined the recovery effort in Pinar del Rio.

"THE BLOCKADE IS THE MOST DIABOLICAL EVER CONCEIVED AGAINST A SISTER
PEOPLE," SAID MANOLO.

They have come without the permission of their government because they
believe that nobody has the right to impose limits on the fraternal
love between sister peoples. The decision could wind them up in jail,
but they assure that their commitment with Cuba is above any risk.

The still fresh memory of the tragedy lived in New Orleans after
Hurricane Katrina brought a uneasy feeling about what they would find
here; nonetheless, the reality of the island has once again surprised
them.

"We were expecting to find the streets covered with mud, dejected
people, but everything is organized. We've seen clean towns, houses
and schools being rebuilt, children receiving classes, the health
centers operating. It's been a great surprise to see that Cuba is
standing," said Rev. Manolo de los Santos Gonzalez, who heads the
brigade of 20 including masons, carpenters, plumbers and electricians
who responded to the call from the interfaith religious organization.

Based on our experience in other parts of the world where there have
been similar disasters we thought the situation would be similar.
After Katrina, Pastors for Peace went to New Orleans. "We were there
gathering bodies," he said.

The reverend said that even today in New Orleans it looks like a
hurricane just hit. "Everything is the same. The houses are ruined.
The people are dispersed throughout the country. The only thing that's
been rebuilt is the tourist zone, which serves to continue enriching
the government."

Here, in contrast, you wouldn't think two hurricanes had hit, said
Manolo de los Santos. "Despite the destruction, everybody is working.
They haven't stopped to lament the damage, but instead are
concentrated on what needs to be done to advance. It's something we
want to take back to the United States so that people know that the
recovery after a natural disaster depends above all on the will of the
government and the people."

When a little over three months ago Manolo visited Puerto Esperanza as
part of the Pastors for Peace Friendship Caravan he never imagined he
be back so quickly.

"When we saw the news of the hurricanes we knew we had to do
something. We sent letters to progressive organizations and the people
responded immediately. The goal was to obtain 20 persons and more than
50 offered. This demonstrates the affection felt by people in the US
for Cuba," said Manolo de los Santos.

Since their arrival in Puerto Esperanza on October 21 the brigade
members have worked in the reconstruction of the Santos Cruz Special
Education School, a center that was severely damaged by the winds of
Gustav and Ike.

"Today you see things that a week ago weren't there: a roof, the pipes
and the electric systems ready," said Manolo, noting however that the
greatest inspiration is communicated by their presence alongside the
victims, at the risk of facing severe punishment when they return to
their country.

"Those of us that are here did not ask the US government for a license
because we believe that no administration can regulate the way one
people shares with another.

"We believe that the blockade is the most immoral and diabolical
instrument conceived against a country and must end. For that reason
Pastors for Peace comes each year without asking for authorization.

"It's true that each time they cause more problems. They threaten us
with fines. They tell us that they are going to take us to court, that
they will imprison us. But nothing will make us renounce our
commitment with Cuba," concluded Manolo de los Santos.

Coping with Food Shortages

2008-10-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

In food crisis, Cuba limits sales so all can eat

By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA – 20 hours ago

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba is limiting how much basic fruits and vegetables people can buy at farmers' markets, irritating some customers but ensuring there's enough — barely — to go around.

The lines are long and some foods are scarce, but because the government has maintained and even increased rations in some areas, Cubans who initially worried about getting enough to eat now seem confident they won't go hungry despite the destruction of 30 percent of the island's crops by hurricanes Gustav and Ike last month.

"Of the little there is, there is some for everyone," 65-year-old Mercedes Grimau said as queued up behind more than 50 people to buy lettuce, limited to two pounds per person.

"I'm not afraid that I will be left without food, but it's a pain to think about all the work we are going to have to go through," Grimau added. "Two or three months ago the farmers markets were well-stocked."

Cuba's government regularly stockpiles beans and other basics, and Economics Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said authorities are ready to increase the $2 billion they already spend on food imports annually. The world credit crisis won't affect much of those imports because U.S. law forces communist Cuba to use cash to purchase American farm goods. But imports from other countries bought with credit could become more difficult or expensive.

The government is delivering all items distributed each month on the universal ration that provides Cubans with up to two weeks of food — including eggs, beans, rice and potatoes — at very low cost. In some hard-hit provinces, extra food has been added.

But the rest of the food Cubans supplement their diets with at supply-and-demand farmers markets and government produce stands has dwindled, prompting the government to limit consumer purchases and cap prices on items including rice, beans, root crops and fresh greens.

Rodriguez has sought to dispel speculation about a replay of the desperate early 1990s, when shelves were bare and people survived for weeks on one small meal daily. Cubans who lived through deprivation after the Soviet Union's collapse say the current food situation doesn't come close.

"It is true that it will take us some time to bring the agricultural production up to the levels that existed before the hurricanes," Rodriguez told state television this week. "Nevertheless, there is no reason to speculate or assume that there will be any hunger."

Although Cuba's relative financial isolation partially protects it from the jolts of the world economy, an extended credit crisis could stunt the island's foreign currency income if Cubans living abroad lose jobs and stop sending family remittances, or if potential tourists can no longer afford to travel.

But now, Cuba's top challenge is to increase local production of fruits and vegetables sold at the farmers' markets.

Waiting at one market on a recent morning, 55-year-old homemaker Regla Suazo said, "At least with the measures I know I can buy something." Shortly thereafter, the first truck of the day pulled up with green beans, green onions, guavas, avocados, corn, squash, cassava root and sweet potatoes.

But quantities were much smaller than usual. Vendor Nadia Gomez, who received nothing that day, said police checkpoints leading into Havana now turn away trucks unauthorized to market produce in the capital or have been ordered send their goods to harder-hit areas.

Cuban agricultural officials expect six months of food shortages, and are increasing short-cycle crops such as salad greens and taking other measures to ensure everyone gets enough to eat.

At Cuatro Caminos farmers market, among Havana's largest and most varied, vendor Juan Carlos Martinez lamented he had only papayas, guavas and pineapples to sell. "This isn't the business it used to be," he said.

US Blocks Direct Family Assistance Through CANF

2008-10-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

Cubans in Florida frustrated that U.S. cut off their aid to island

Foundation appeals decision by government

sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-flbcubahelp1009sboct09,0,1640950.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

By Alexia Campbell

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

October 9, 2008

Click here to find out more!

One man wants to send his niece in Cuba money to rebuild a room of her flattened home. Another man wants to get arthritis medicine to his aunt, who moves around in a makeshift wheelchair. One woman looks for ways to send food to a cousin who waits for promised government aid.

For two days in September, it was easy. Cubans in the United States could send money directly to hurricane victims on the island, thanks to a temporary easing of federal restrictions on remittances.

But federal officials last month amended the license they granted to the Cuban American National Foundation.

Now it prohibits direct aid to people on the island.

As the foundation appeals the decision, South Florida Cubans struggle to keep hope alive in their homeland.

"It's completely frustrating," said Pedro Abigantus, a Pembroke Pines resident whose niece was left homeless in eastern Cuba after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike plowed through her house more than a month ago.

Current U.S. law limits Cubans in America to sending no more than $300 every three months to immediate family members in Cuba.

Abigantus, 71, can't send money to his niece unless someone travels there.

He wants to help his niece and her husband piece together a room for themselves and their little girl.

"To find one nail — it's impossible," Abigantus said. "They straighten out the same old nails and use the same old wood."

About 1,200 people wired money to Cuba through the foundation after the U.S. Department of Treasury first granted the license and after hurricanes damaged more than 100,000 homes on the island.

Two days later, the $250,000 limit the license allowed was hit, the foundation said.

Federal officials didn't explain why direct aid was briefly allowed and then taken away, said Sandy Acosta Cox, spokeswoman for the foundation.

The Treasury Department now won't publicly confirm or deny that the license was ever issued.

"There are no words to describe this," said Acosta Cox.Fred Valdes, 60, of Hollywood, heard news that part of the roof at his aunt's house near Santa Clara blew off. His aunt, who lives alone and suffers from arthritis, moves around in a wheelchair made from a chair mounted on two bike wheels. Her house has no power and she drinks water from a well in her yard, he said.

"Enough is enough," said Valdes, who wants to send her medicine and money. "Forget the politics, let the help go in."

Food Shortages

2008-10-09T06:59:00.001-07:00

Cuba bolsters food rations to counter shortages
Wed Oct 8, 2008 4:33pm EDT

By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) - Fruits and vegetables are getting hard to find across Cuba after hurricanes wiped out crops, but the government is tapping food reserves to bolster the monthly food ration that Cubans have received for decades.

It said it would step up imports when needed to make sure no one goes hungry, a situation that could arise by December when diplomats estimate Cuba's reserves will run out.

A survey of major cities and the hardest-hit provinces found that supplies of vegetables and fruits had dried up, even in the usually well-supplied black market. But starches and proteins could still be found with an effort.

"The problem is you have to be at the markets when something comes in, because supply is irregular," said Carlos Pena, a state worker in Holguin province.

Hurricanes Gustav and Ike struck the communist-run island in a 10-day period starting August 30, causing $5 billion in damage and wiping out of 30 percent of Cuba's crops.

Cubans say the monthly ration usually provides enough basic food to get through about two weeks, and then they have to supplement it with purchases.

Across much of the country the ration has been increased with additional rice, beans, sugar, cooking oil, a few cans of fish and meat, crackers and other basics, according to people interviewed.

They said they had been told the additional food would be provided through March, which is when the government has said it expects the shortages to ease.

LINING UP FOR LETTUCE

In the few provinces where there was little storm damage, which includes Havana, rations have not been increased and some food that normally would have gone to the Cuban capital was being diverted to needy parts of the country.

As a result, Havana food markets have been more barren than before the storms.

At one of the city's urban gardens begun to increase food supply during the deprivation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, at least 100 people stood in line on Wednesday to buy the day's primary offering, lettuce.

"I don't think we'll have enough lettuce for everybody in line," one of the vendors said.

In measures that some critics say have only worsened the storm-induced shortages, the Cuban government has slapped price controls on staples and limited how many pounds of rice, for example, an individual can purchase.

It also has cracked down on sales outside the state-controlled distribution system and pressured farmers to sell only to the state.

Street vendors have disappeared across the country and what is available at private markets has dwindled.

Camaguey resident Evelio Cisneros said he got basics such as rice and beans at a state store on Tuesday, then found pork and avocado at a private market.

"There is much less since the storms, but there is food at a decent price to buy," he said.

(Editing by Jeff Franks, Michael Christie and Xavier Briand)

Insight from Inside: A Cuban View of the Migration Risk

2008-09-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that a worsening of economic and social conditions in Cuba will provoke an increase in legal and illegal immigration, mainly to the US. It can get out of hand, but not easily.

In previous situations, Boca de Camarioca in the 60’s, Mariel in the 80’s and the last one in the mid 90’s, always the Cuban authorities had, in some justified way, allowed it to go on until the US authorities were forced to some kind of agreement. But it was always first provoked by rigid US policies that did not take in consideration the consequences of such policies.

I think that the Cuban Government and Party have the means and political tools to avoid such a situation today, but it is obviously a possibility.

As you have been probably able to watch, the destruction in Pinar del Río, Holguín and Las Tunas, but not only in these provinces, has been enormous and it has hit private houses in the worst way. Just as much, it also hit agricultural production and electrical energy infrastructure.

There is already a certain scarcity of sweet potatoes (bonitato), malanga (I don’t know the name in English), bananas and plantain, fresh pork and goat meat and others basic food in the “agromercados” and it will get worse. There is also a problem in the CUC ("dollar") stores to get cooking oil (you can only get soya oil), tomatoe paste, canned fish and meat, frozen chicken, cheese and fresh meat.

The only solution is a rapid recuperation of agricultural production. The private agricultural sector is the main producer, but can not do it by itself, It is needed that the state farms under their various forms of organization increase production, something they have been unable to do in 50 years, without huge investment in machinery, fertilizers, insecticides and other inputs that are no longer available.

As the destruction is shown by TV, people get surprised to see how poor the houses were before the hurricanes, and slowly everybody is starting to realize that it will take decades to bring housing to, even, the previous poor situation.

An immediate political result of the destruction is the solidarity and unity of purpose that brings among the people. This is probably true in every country. In Cuba it is even more so, as the Government and Party had created a solid organization that includes more and more people to people solidarity, to confront hurricanes and heavy rains. Also because of the quick and effective response to start reconstruction, that includes, even, cultural groups with well known artists performing in the more severely affected areas. Of course the limited resources are the main problem.

But, is difficult to predict how the mood will change as the reality of an even poorer country, with even more economic and social problems, takes hold slowly of people's minds.

So, yes it is almost certain that there will be an increase of emigration. Whether it will be massive and illegal, depends of many factors. Of course the impact of a limited in time lift of the embargo, or the increase in remittances and traveling, will help to avoid that this problem gets out of hand. As has happened in the past, I doubt the US Administration will take in consideration the consequences of their fanatic anti-evolution policies. Even without massive emigration, it is always safer for you not to provoke problems to your neighbor that can affect you in the long run.

Washington Post on Hurricane Impact There and Here

2008-09-24T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hurricanes Shift Debate On Embargo Against Cuba

By Joshua Partlow

Washington Post Foreign Service

Wednesday, September 24, 2008; A01

LOS PALACIOS, Cuba -- A pair of devastating storms have prompted new calls for the United States to end its long isolation of Cuba, including from hard-line exile groups that are pushing for the Bush administration to loosen restrictions they had long favored.

For the first time in the 47-year history of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, Washington has offered direct aid to the island's Communist government, long dominated by Fidel Castro and his younger brother, Raúl, who is now nominally in charge. The offer marks a slight softening of the Bush administration's policy toward Cuba, motivated in part by a new generation of Cuban Americans who think a more open approach to the island during a time of political transition could help bring about a lasting change in government.

But even the most hawkish Cuban exile groups are pushing the Bush administration to go much further. Traditionally a voice for greater isolation of the Castro government, the Cuban exile lobby has asked Congress to lift the four-year-old rules that limit Cuban Americans to sending $300 every three months to immediate family on the island and to making just one trip to Cuba every three years. Some have even proposed a temporary suspension of the trade embargo, a cause taken up by a few members of Congress.

So far, though, the Cuban government has rejected the U.S. offer, preferring instead to rely on relief aid that arrives daily by the planeload from Russia and other more sympathetic countries. The Cuban government has mobilized the military to help in the reconstruction effort, including here in this hard-hit stretch of western Cuba, while legions of volunteers are picking coffee beans and other crops to salvage this year's harvest and working to repair damaged homes.

"I will not be surprised if we're looking at a major immigration crisis in the next few months," said Silvia Wilhelm, executive director of the Miami-based Cuban American Commission for Family Rights, an organization that promotes closer U.S.-Cuba relations, who visited the island after the hurricanes. "We're talking a situation that is very critical for the Cuban people."

The question of who should help the Cubans in times of need and to what degree has shaped Cuba's relationship with the United States for decades. The severe damage done by the storms appears now to be changing the debate. The hurricanes, which hit the island one after the other in just over a week, damaged an estimated 500,000 homes and ruined 30 percent of the nation's crops.

Four days after Gustav struck Cuba on Aug. 30, the U.S. government offered to send an assessment team to the island and $100,000 in emergency funding for humanitarian groups. The Cuban government has estimated that the damage from the two storms totals $5 billion, and it dismissed the offer as too paltry to be serious.

But on Sept. 13, six days after Hurricane Ike barreled into the island of 11.4 million people, the Bush administration raised its offer to $5 million, which U.S. officials called an unprecedented proposal of direct aid to the Cuban government. In the past, U.S. aid to the island has been channeled through nongovernmental relief organizations. The Bush administration has authorized an additional $8 million in private U.S. donations to be distributed in that way.

The Cuban government requested building materials instead of the blankets and "hygiene kits" the aid included, said José Cárdenas, the U.S. Agency for International Development's acting assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

"These people are in dire need," he said. "We certainly hope that they would just accept it and get this stuff to the people who need it."

In an attempt to fulfill the request for building materials, the U.S. government on Friday proposed sending 8,000 "shelter kits," which include zinc roof sheeting, lumber, tools and wire. Cárdenas said the value of the aid is $6.3 million. So far, the Cuban government has not responded.

But Fidel Castro, who because of illness handed over official power to Raúl in February but remains highly influential, has signaled that the Communist Party would reject the U.S. aid on principle.

"Our country cannot accept a donation from the government that blockades us," he wrote recently in Granma, the party's daily newspaper. "The damage of thousands of lives, suffering, and more than $200 billion that the blockade and the aggression of the Yankees has cost us -- they can't pay for that with anything."

Despite the offers, many Cuban exiles who favor more contact with the island have sharply criticized the Bush administration.

"A whole group that you could consider extreme right-wing a year ago is now in favor of two very important changes," said Alfredo Duran, a Miami lawyer and a member of the Cuban Committee for Democracy, a moderate exile group that favors dialogue with the Cuban government. Referring to proposals to lift restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba and the fuller debate emerging among Cuban exiles about the embargo itself, Duran said: "A lot of people in the past would not even talk about it. They basically shunned the issue."

Last week, El Nuevo Herald, a traditionally hard-line Spanish-language newspaper in Miami, published an editorial supporting a proposal by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) to lift the restrictions on remittances and travel for six months. Even in "normal times," the editorial read, the measures were "highly unpopular."

"Now, they offend intelligence and sensibility," the paper said. "That absurd strategy does not benefit North America's best interests nor puts pressure for the return of freedom to Cuba."

The Cuban American National Foundation, historically the most powerful Cuban exile organization, still supports the embargo. But it is now actively campaigning to eliminate the travel and remittance restrictions, and recently sent a letter to President Bush urging him to waive them. The president of the foundation, Francisco Hernandez, said the Cuban government is taking advantage of the storms to win international political support while the Bush administration is "tying the hands of its friends, the Cuban American community."

"We all have, down here in Miami, a terrible sense of frustration at this administration at this time, because we are wasting the greatest opportunity for those who want freedom and democracy in Cuba to help and to be agents of change in Cuba," said Hernandez, who took part in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and described the current U.S. policy as an "even bigger mistake."

Meanwhile, Russia has sent planeloads of supplies to help storm victims; Brazil and Spain have also contributed. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, a close Cuban ally, visited Havana this week and is expected to give a lucrative aid package.

Havana, the seaside capital, was largely spared the brunt of the storms. But many important industries suffered serious losses.

The winds flattened fields of sugar cane, the coffee harvest was hurt badly, and tobacco-curing sheds collapsed. Millions of acres of crops were damaged in the storms. The destruction left an estimated 200,000 people homeless and left others facing severe damage and long delays in the arrival of building supplies to repair what remains.

"Everything was destroyed -- look at this," said Linda Meléndez, the sun beating down into what was her living room before Hurricane Gustav tore the roof off her home here in this city of 40,000 people set among cultivated fields.

The Cuban government had classified her house as a partial loss, she said, preventing her family from receiving wood to build a temporary backyard hut.

"How long can we wait for materials?" she said.

On the way west out of Havana, metal electricity towers, one after the other, lay on the ground, their cables slumped between them. Houses had been shorn of their corrugated roofs.

Here in Los Palacios, every house appeared to have sustained at least some damage. But the rebuilding effort, in comparison to the chaos of neighboring Haiti, has been orderly.

Rubble and debris have been swept into piles along every street. Several residents said the government had assessed the damage and outlined the building materials they were supposed to receive. Many people were living with friends and neighbors, had moved into public buildings or were constructing small wooden shacks in their yards until the supplies arrived.

"I have never seen a storm like this; it was terrible," said Mario de Jesús Fuentes Campos, a 55-year-old retiree who lost his roof and the big mango tree in the back yard.

His family went 15 days without electricity. Prices of gasoline and cooking oil have risen. The stores have shortages of rice, he said, and there is hardly any meat at the butcher's.

"We have no money now," said his mother, Encarnación Campos, 81, who has a son living in Riverside, Calif. "It's unfair the Cubans can't send help to their relatives in Cuba. I don't agree with these rules."

Letter from Cuba Stiudy Group Executive Director

2008-09-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 25, 2008

LETTER TO EDITOR: Help for Cuba

For observers of the diplomatic chess match being played between Havana and Washington over humanitarian relief to the victims of hurricanes Gustav and Ike in Cuba, it is easy to overlook the positive steps taken by the U.S. government following its initial timid offer of $100,000 in assistance.

Despite at least five rejections by the Cuban government of U.S. offers of assistance, the administration has moved quickly to get assistance to the victims of the hurricane damage in Cuba.

These measures include: expediting licenses for nonprofit organizations wishing to send assistance to Cuba, delivering approximately $1.7 million in aid through nongovernmental organizations working in Cuba, and authorizing the sale of $250 million in agricultural goods to Cuba, including lumber.

The latest U.S. offer includes $6.3 million worth of construction materials to help Cuba rebuild. Though these offers fall short of the immense estimated need for the Cuban people (projected to be between $4 billion and $5 billion), they represent positive steps that deserve praise.

U.S. officials have proved their willingness to work with Cuban officials (even sit down with them) to make the legitimate U.S. offer of assistance more palpable for a regime with an already bruised ego.

This tragedy has presented the U.S. government with a unique opportunity to demonstrate the generosity of America. U.S. officials' willingness to take these positive steps is evidence that some in our government understand the importance of this opportunity.

Recognizing the Cuban government's stubborn unwillingness to accept U.S. assistance, these officials would do well to press on the administration the value of family-to-family assistance in circumstances such as this and advocate to suspend restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba by Cuban-Americans.

The U.S. government's willingness to take these steps stands in contrast to a cruel regime that rejects the assistance its people so desperately need and prefers to play politics rather than ensure the well-being of its citizens.

TOMAS BILBAO

Executive director

Cuba Study Group

Washington

My letter to Secretary Gutierrez

2008-09-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Secretary Gutierrez,

You are quoted in the Miami Herald today:

''It's hard to understand -- hard -- how they put politics ahead of suffering,''

We agree that Cuba should be more flexible about receiving US hurricane assistance. However, I also think that Washington is putting politics ahead of suffering at least as much as Havana.

FRD has circulated on line the following letter to the President which currently has about 950 signers, many of whom are Cuban American. I encourage you to review the list and browse through the comments http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Cubafloodaid/signatures.html.

Because of the devastation suffered by Cuba from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and the history of conflict and suspicion between our countries, creative means must be found to enable the traditional compassion of Americans to express itself in assistance to the Cuban people in a timely fashion.
: We urge an immediate 180 day suspension by Presidential order, or by legislation, of Treasury and Commerce Department restrictions and licensing requirements for humanitarian travel and remittances by all Americans and assistance from not-for-profit organizations granted tax-exempt status by the IRS.

Only such an action can liberate the caring and generosity of hundreds of thousands of Americans with personal links to Cuba and depoliticize the means of transmittal and acceptance. It will create a different atmosphere between our countries that makes the practical details of government to government aid far easier to negotiate.

Without this kind of paradigm changing breakthrough, officials of both countries will continue to posture and score points with their respective audiences, and the Cuban people will pay the price.

Sincerely,

John McAuliff

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

John McAuliff
Executive Director
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
145 Palisade Street, Suite 401
Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522

US Offers Construction Materials

2008-09-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

Posted on Wed, Sep. 24, 2008

Cuba silent on latest U.S. aid offer

BY FRANCES ROBLES

The Cuban government has not officially responded to Washington's latest no-strings offer to provide $6.3 million in light construction materials to benefit hurricane victims. Havana has rejected three previous offers.

The U.S. State Department told Cuban diplomats in Washington on Friday that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was ready to send $6.3 million in corrugated zinc roofs, nails, tools, lumber, sheeting and light shelter kits by ship to benefit some 48,000 people hit by back-to-back devastating hurricanes.

But speaking at a New York church Monday, Cuba's vice president said Washington can keep making its proposals, but what it should really do is lift the trade embargo.

''They will continue making proposals,'' First Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura said at a speech Monday in Manhattan. ``If they really want to help the Cuban people, why don't they lift the embargo? They try to say that Cuba is trying to sacrifice its own people for politics when the most politicized thing is the blockade.''

Havana has already turned down flights full of disaster relief supplies and -- as of Monday night -- had not responded officially to the latest offer from Washington.

''It's hard to understand -- hard -- how they put politics ahead of suffering,'' U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in a phone interview with The Miami Herald on Monday. ``They said last time that they needed building materials, so we added building materials. It's frankly very surprising that the leadership -- whoever is making the decisions -- is putting pride, power and their own ego ahead of the suffering of the Cuban people.''

The diplomatic note went ignored amid several reports that Cubans receiving cash storm aid from an exile group in Miami were being threatened by state security.

Melba Santana, the wife of a political prisoner in Las Tunas, said that when she attempted to distribute some money to neighbors from $300 in storm aid sent by the Cuban American National Foundation, state security agents threatened to criminally charge her.

''Let's see how far they are willing to take this, how far they are willing to sacrifice people's suffering,'' Santana said in a telephone interview. ``It was a miserable little $10 I was giving out and people are in need.''

The most recent proposal comes on the heels of a diplomatic clash between Havana and Washington over two powerful storms that hit the island in as many weeks. When Hurricane Gustav slammed into western Cuba on Aug. 30, the U.S. government offered $100,000 in aid and a disaster assessment team, a standard initial response to natural disasters that was widely criticized for not being generous and tied to conditions.

Cuba turned it down, saying an assessment team was an unnecessary pretext.

''We don't need experts. Our storm assessment experts are better,'' Machado said. ``They wanted to send spies so they could continue slandering us.''

When Ike hit the east and west coasts of Cuba destroying thousands of buildings in its path, Washington came back with the identical aid package.

Cuba blasted it and asked for a temporary reprieve from the U.S. embargo instead.

Washington came under heavy criticism again for insisting on the assessment team and making such a paltry initial offer. The USAID went back a third time, lifting the conditions and increasing the aid to $5 million in goods and cash.

The Cuban government's official response said what the nation really needed was credits to purchase construction materials. The U.S. embargo prohibits American companies from selling such materials to Cuba on credit. Current law allows food and lumber sales paid upfront in cash.

USAID said $1.7 million of Washington's aid is already making its way to Cuba through nongovernmental organizations.

Cuban Government Position

2008-09-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

Granma

Havana. September 19, 2008

Statements by Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque

Genocide and the latest anti-Cuba propaganda show

By María Julia Mayoral

Statements by Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque THE economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States for 50 years is the main obstacle to Cuba's development, the well-being of the Cuban people and, under the current circumstances, all the work involved in recovering from the extensive damage caused by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, stated Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque in Havana.

He affirmed that, since its implementation, the blockade has resulted in more than $93 billion in losses, which at current dollar values is the equivalent of $224.6 billion. He noted that this figure is based on conservative estimates, including only duly documented losses; there are many direct and indirect effects that have not been quantified.

Last year saw the most brutal implementation of the blockade, the foreign minister said. At today's prices, economic damage in 2007 totaled $3.775 billion. Irrational persecution of businesses, banks and citizens of the United States and other countries continues, including the obstruction of Internet sites related to Cuba, he noted.

At our country's proposal, this coming October 29, a draft resolution will be submitted to the United States General Assembly for a vote on the necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade. It will be the 17th time that the issue has been put to the consideration of that important body and, last year, Cuba's demand received a "yes" vote from 184 of the 192 member nations.

Cuba is confident that it will once again receive the overwhelming support of the international community, Pérez Roque affirmed. "The blockade is a violation not only of our rights but of the sovereignty of third countries and the rights of their businesses and citizens. It flagrantly violates the rights of the U.S. people and Cubans who live there, and according to the Geneva Convention, qualifies as an act of genocide," he affirmed.

QUITE DIFFERENT ATTITUDES

In response to questions from reporters, the minister said that, in the wake of the disasters caused by Gustav and Ike, more than 20 countries have offered Cuba humanitarian aid, donations and cooperation projects, and another dozen have sent messages of encouragement and their willingness to cooperate. This contrasts with the attitude taken by the United States.

A U.S. State Department information sheet published a few days ago confirmed an attempt to launch a propaganda campaign in order to try to divert attention from the broad debate and the reiterated appeals of the international community to lift the blockade on Cuba, Pérez Roque noted.

That information sheet, titled "Humanitarian Assistance to the Cuban People after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike," says that after Gustav's passing, the U.S. government granted licenses for $250 million in agricultural sales to Cuba. This is an attempt to present the bureaucratic process imposed on U.S. companies - which includes obtaining licenses from the State and Treasury Departments, plus other agencies - as proof of that government's willingness to sell food to Cuba, when in reality, the obstacles to that process still prevail.

That distortion was described by the foreign minister as "blatant manipulation," because everyone knows that food sales are not new; they have existed for several years, and they are not aid. Cuba must buy these products and pay for them upfront, in violation of regular international practices, but that was a stipulation of the U.S. government. Neither Cuban nor U.S. banks can participate in payment transactions; they have to recur to banks in third countries. This is not a question of trade, because it is a one-way operation. Cuba is prohibited from exporting to the U.S. market, and the ships that come to our countries return empty to the United States.

The State Department document also says that the U.S. government provided immediate emergency aid of $100,000 to non-governmental organizations participating in humanitarian aid operations in our country. "We don't have the slightest idea of where that money ended up," Pérez Roque said, "and we never asked for it."

The information sheet states that the United States is willing to provide up to $5 million. It has already made itself clear about the Cuba issue, Pérez Roque noted. This is a U.S. propaganda operation to try to make itself look like the "good guy," as Fidel commented in a recent "Reflection" column.

The State Department sheet also says that the U.S. people are the greatest providers of humanitarian aid to the Cuban people; this is based on the manipulation of the following figures: According to the U.S. claim, last year, $20.6 million in non-agricultural humanitarian aid came to Cuba, along with $40.5 million in medical donations, making a total of $61 million. "We can confirm that during 2007, Cuba received donations from U.S. NGOs worth $6.1 million; in other words, 10 times less."

In 2000, before President Bush entered the White House, more than 160 U.S. NGOs were participating in that humanitarian effort. They were institutions of diverse types from virtually every U.S. state and had licenses from the government of the time. Due to persecution by the Bush administration, today there are only 21 NGOs with licenses, Pérez Roque commented.

"For us, the main value of those deliveries is not based on figures but the nobility of the gesture, and we appreciate the efforts by U.S. NGOs who carry out that work in a noble and friendly way that speaks to the best values of that country's people and is done from a position of respect for and sympathy toward Cuba."

According to the State Department, last year the people of that country sent humanitarian aid to Cuban people in the form of gifts worth $179 million, taking into account shipments from residents in that country to their relatives in Cuba. "The idea that the United States would try to present this as an effort by its government is insolent, because President Bush intensified the regulations and prohibitions related to this issue, reduced the value of permitted packages and changed the content of what can be sent, the frequency of deliveries and the category of those who may receive these packages, because they arbitrarily redefined the concept of family," he said.

"It is our duty to clarify the truth for public opinion, while that propagandistic aberration is being pursued with the goal of diverting attention from the main issue: we have not asked the United States for help because we cannot accept donations from a government that is blockading us; we are prepared to buy indispensable materials that U.S. companies place on the export market; we are requesting authorization for the supply of these resources and the normal credits used in commercial operations.

"If the U.S. government does not wish to do so definitively, Cuba has requested that it authorize these measures for the next six months, taking into account the damages caused by hurricanes Gustav and Ike and the fact that the most dangerous months of the hurricane season are yet to come."

To date, the U.S. government has not responded to the request officially reiterated for the third time a few days ago, Pérez Roque noted. This is still pending a response, but meanwhile, that country is mounting propaganda shows of rhetoric, of ill-intentioned publicity, at a time when our people are facing a situation of danger and pain.

Referring to imperialism's real intentions, Pérez Roque noted that, this year, the U.S. government is spending - through just one of its agencies, USAID - $46 million on its mercenary groups in Cuba, with the aim of promoting internal subversion, and $40 million on maintaining its illegal, anti-Cuba radio and television broadcasts. "This is not even taking into account the CIA and other agencies."

While the two hurricanes caused enormous devastation, the Cuban people and government are confident that we will continue moving forward, Pérez Roque stated. "Despite all of the adversities, including the ruthless and prolonged blockade, our country will continue moving forward and will do so with the united strength of all of its sons and daughters, without leaving anyone abandoned. We will demonstrate once again what a popular revolution and a people in power are capable of doing," he affirmed.

In response to a question about relations with the European Union, the foreign minister observed that some progress has been made on normalization in recent months, especially since the EU finally decided to renounce its attempts to impose sanctions on Cuba.

The EU made a proposal for political dialogue which Cuba accepted, but first it will be necessary to discuss and establish its foundations, and that means this must be done between equals, with respect for the independence of nations, the principle of non-intervention in domestic affairs, and of the sovereign equality of countries, he emphasized.

Translated by Granma International .

Holguin Rebuilding Problems

2008-09-24T07:19:00.000-07:00

Posted on Wed, Sep. 24, 2008

Shortages hamper attempts to rebuild after Hurricane Ike

BY MIAMI HERALD STAFF

The hammer will not leave Alfredo Pérez's side as he sleeps under the night sky.

With no roof over his head -- like many in this seaside village -- Pérez uses the hammer to protect his family's valuables from intruders who may want to pilfer the crumbled chunks of brick, rusty nails, and aged wooden beams he has salvaged and plans to use to rebuild his home ''poquito a poquito'' or ``little by little.''

Supplies are hard to come by. Even the rusty nails bent out of shape are a hot commodity throughout the northeastern provinces hardest hit by Hurricane Ike -- a storm that slammed into this region on Sept. 7 as a major Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds and gained strength at various times during its two-day trek across the island.

''This will set us back 100 years,'' Pérez said of Ike's impact on Cuba, an island in which many regions outside the capital city of Havana still rely on horse and buggy as a means of transportation.

Whatever Ike's winds did not take from the Pérez family was left at the mercy of the thrashing waves. Their home, like numerous others in the town, was steps away from the turquoise blue sea.

''Do you know what an atomic bomb does?'' asked resident José Armando León, 72, standing near an open field where his house once stood in the neighboring city of Banes. ``This is what happened here, it's like an atomic bomb was dropped and we were left with nothing.''

The ferocity of Ike's island-wide path of destruction is no longer news to villagers who have been living in the devastation for two weeks. They understand the magnitude of the storm -- the fact that more than 444,000 homes were damaged across the country, 932 of those in the northeastern Holguín province. They know about the eight storm-related deaths and that thousands of acres of crops like banana and sugar cane were ravaged.

They can deal with the thought of not having a roof over their head -- grateful that neighbors, relatives and schools offer shelter. Even hunger is not much of an issue as neighbors share food and batches of rice and plantains are cooked at local schools for dinners.

The information most residents here seek from outsiders trickling in from more populated urban areas is any updates on reconstruction efforts. With phone lines still down, villagers rely on those passing through town to relay information. And rumors are rampant.

VENEZUELAN HELP

Some residents said local leaders have told them the Venezuelan government was tallying the homes without roofs and would dispatch supplies and workers to help rebuild. Others clung to hopeful rumblings that churches outside of the country were going to be allowed to bring donations to the remote areas.

While hoping for supplies to come in, most families aren't waiting around for the government to fix their crumbling homes, clear the roads or erect downed electric poles.

''We're just helping until the government can come out and help. It's all of our duty,'' said Hugo Alberto Betancourt, 80, as he and three others attempted to position the concrete post of an electric pole into place in Banes.

Outside of the nearby beach town of Gibara, just 30 minutes west of Banes, a man named José Ricardo, 32, washed his buggy in a stream that covered what was normally the road out of town.

When the water finally subsides, he and other neighborhood volunteers plan to clear the drainage system of all the debris caused by Ike. He said the neighbors had no qualms about fixing the road themselves in the absence of government assistance.

''We do it for the good of everyone,'' he said. ``Do you know what it's like to have to pull off your shoes and roll up your pants to walk in the water everyday?''

Like his neighbors, Pérez wasted no time trying to figure out which pieces of wood were long enough to form into the shell of a roof. His wife, Irene, 60, walked about the neighborhood attempting to find spoons, cups, clothes that the sea waves pushed as far as three blocks from their home.

Irene said she regretted leaving behind these essentials and family photos she had posted on her walls when she followed government orders to evacuate before Ike struck. The family fled to Banes where sturdier concrete apartment buildings fared better. She has not spoken much since Ike hit.

''I feel that if I open my mouth to talk about this my soul will escape out of my body,'' Irene said, as tears rolled down her blue eyes.

LUXURY HOTEL

The Pérezes don't know when power will be restored, but from their house they can see a couple of blocks down the road where the state-run luxury hotel Las Brisas has power running via generators.

The government has placed a special focus on making sure hotels and urban centers have power, assuring that the mainly European tourists have air-conditioned rooms and hot running water.

The state-run newspaper Ahora, which covers Holguín province, recently reported that recovery priority has been placed on the tourism industry in the eastern provinces.

''The damage to hotels is recoverable,'' a hotel representative told Ahora. ``We have the resources needed to return to normality in a short time and get ready for the upcoming season.''

Down the street from Pérez's house, the Villa Bahia -- a seafood restaurant and popular tourist bar -- was shut down because of damage. But soon after Ike passed, government employees traveled from the southeastern province of Granma to help in recovery efforts. They gathered broken bits of brick by hand, attempting to form a wall. ''If we fix this now, it's good for the tourists,'' said a construction worker named Rufino as he laid down a brick. ``If it's good for the tourists, it's good for us.''

Repairs on the island have been a patchwork affair.

Some towns have had their straw-roof homes replaced with metal sheets just a week after the storm. In other towns, residents have been given two pieces of metal here, some straw for their roofs there. Further delaying progress in the eastern provinces is the fact that areas on the western end of the island like Pinar del Río and the Isle of Youth were battered by back-to-back storms starting with Hurricane Gustav on Aug. 30.

Pérez predicted he would be able to rebuild his roof within a month. But he was not sure when he might be able to replace the other basic possessions lost to the storm, including a mattress, plates and cups.

DAILY TREK

His wife has joined neighbors on a daily trek.

When the sun begins to set, she heads inland by foot to spend the night at a friend's apartment more than 30 minutes away. Her husband, like other men of Playa Guardalavaca, stays behind with the hammer at his side to guard what's left of their tattered home.

Looking toward the tranquil sea whose ferocious waves swept away their possessions, Pérez repeated the mantra spoken by many throughout Cuba's remote areas.

''`La vida no es facil,'' he said. ``Life is not easy.''

The name of the correspondent who filed this report was withheld because the journalist lacked the visa required by the Cuban government to report from the island.

Recovery Problems

2008-09-24T07:12:00.000-07:00

Posted on Wed, Sep. 24, 2008

In Cuba, recovery is slow and uncertain

BY MIAMI HERALD STAFF

Swamped by chest-high flooding caused by recent hurricanes, the humble residents of this desolate fishing village on Cuba's southern coast found one small cause for celebration recently: homemade ice cream.

On a clattering, old metal contraption rigged up in a drab concrete compound, Marlen Vargas López, a smiling soul with close-cropped hair, whipped up a fresh batch and pulled a lever to fill cone after cone with chocolate, the flavor of the day.

''It's refreshing,'' said one young man, stopped in front of the store in the scorching afternoon sun. ``At least it relieves the heat.''

The ice-cream treat was about all there was for sale at El Recreo, one of the few shops open in the dismal location south of Havana. Clara Balladares Gomes, another store clerk, said there were no snacks, no bottled water and no soft drinks at the rundown outlet.

While the flooding from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike has receded, filthy pools of stagnant water still lined the streets in front of the wood shack homes on a recent afternoon, giving off a stench.

The shanties were scarcely habitable before the western region of Cuba -- from the Gulf of Batabanó to the agriculture-rich province of Pinar del Río -- was pummeled by back-to-back hurricanes within eight days beginning Aug. 30. Now, the homes are musty, and many roofs leak when it rains.

Spotting newcomers in the street, a middle-aged woman in worn shorts trailed after the visitors, offering to provide overnight accommodations and meals at a ''casa particular,'' or private home that takes in guests.

Now, more than ever, she could use the money.

THE DEVASTATION

The twin natural disasters may be the worst to ever hit the communist island, with preliminary damage estimates for the two storms reaching an estimated $5 billion. According to reports in the Cuban newspaper Opciones, more than 444,000 homes were damaged, with some 63,249 destroyed. The electric grid was badly crippled. Gustav wiped out more than 800 tons of premium Cuban tobacco.

Numerous other crops also have been damaged. Last week, along a main highway in Pinar del Río, a small group of field workers, kneeling in a field of shallow water, used their hands to pull plants by the roots. One weary worker lifted his head and explained that much of the crop ``is damaged.''

Hurricane preparedness and massive evacuations clearly helped to minimize human injuries. Even hotel rooms on the island include detailed information on what to do in case of a hurricane. Several locals said they are used to the storms and closely monitor their tracks to know if they need to respond.

THE RELIEF EFFORT

Despite the devastation in the village of Surgidero de Batabanó, small boys -- the sons of local fishermen -- played in the street, merrily sloshing in filthy puddles.

Elsewhere, the government seemed to be working hard on the relief effort. In tourist-popular Viñales last week, many government workers joined in a cleanup, and workers from the electrical company were out in full force in a bid to restore power, erecting new poles and stringing lines.

Cuban officials blame whatever shortcomings are encountered on the U.S. embargo.

In the state newspaper Granma, an article said that a half-century economic war against the island will make it more difficult to rebuild, given that Cuba is a small country with limited financial resources.

But the government has reported little about the repeated offers of aid by the United States, which have been consistently turned down.

In the remote area of Surgidero de Batabanó, there was little sign of government aid on a recent afternoon, although two large tractor-trailer trucks, loaded with building blocks, rumbled through town on a delivery.

Even so, the residents of Surgidero de Batabanó count themselves relatively lucky compared with their neighbors.

The village, which sits about 30 miles south of Havana, serves as a launching point for ferries to the Isla de la Juventud, or Isle of Youth, a popular tourist destination that was devastated by the two hurricanes.

The island, off Cuba's south coast, remains in the dark after the consecutive storms knocked out electricity.

A COMMUNITY IN RUIN

Formerly known as the Isle of Pines, the island has a prison that once served as a cell for a young revolutionary named Fidel Castro. After a failed attack on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953, Castro and his accomplices were put on trial for the insurrection against Fulgencio Batista's government. At the trial, he declared he had no fear of prison, declaring that, ``History will absolve me.''

Most of the private homes on the isle that take in guests were among those leveled, making it difficult for residents who relied on precious tourist dollars. According to Cuban press reports, 80 percent of the poultry farming on the Isle of Youth also was seriously affected.

No one knows how long it will be before the isle will be able to restore enough infrastructure to attract tourists, who head there for its age-old cave paintings and outstanding coral reefs. But, for now, many travel officials are steering tourists away.

At Havana's airport last week, a ticket agent for Cubana airlines urged against visiting the Isle of Youth.

''Why would you want to go there?'' she asked. ``It's 100 percent finished.''

The name of the correspondent who filed this report was withheld because the reporter did not have the journalist's visa required by the Cuban government to report from the island.

Both Governments Put Politics Above People

2008-09-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

Bush Plays Politics as Cubans Suffer

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/09/cuban_crisis.html/print.html

By Stephanie Miller | September 23, 2008

Center for American Progress

With all of the talk and debate about the Bush administration's response to the financial crisis engulfing Wall Street, little attention is being paid to urgent and time sensitive legislation a few members of Congress have introduced in the last few days that would allow the United States to more effectively and meaningfully respond to the devastating humanitarian crisis in Cuba in the wake of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

Congressman Bill Delahunt (D-MA), and Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), have introduced legislation that would temporarily ease heightened restrictions on direct family travel, remittances, and relief packages to Cuba that have been in place since 2004. Senators Dodd and Lugar's legislation contemplates widening the items that the Cuban government can purchase with cash to include items necessary for relief response. These are critical and important legislative measures that are even more noteworthy during this time of Wall Street bailouts because neither the House nor Senate initiative would cost tax payers a thing.

Efforts to respond to the crisis to date have been hijacked by political posturing by both the Bush administration and Raul Castro's government. The Bush administration has been offering aid and refusing to ease the restrictions on direct family travel and remittances that it tightened significantly in 2004, and the Castro government is refusing to accept any aid that does not involve a removal of the trade embargo. This leaves Cubans to confront the devastation on their own and Cuban Americans feeling despair as they hear from their relatives about the plight of people on the island.

Marlene Azola told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Oversight last week during her congressional testimony that while Haitian Americans can travel freely to Haiti to help their family and friends in the wake of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, Cuban Americans cannot exercise the same freedom. The Cuban people, not the Cuban government, are the ones suffering the most as a result of this policy. Even the President of the Cuban American Foundation of Miami, Francisco J. Hernandez—a man who participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion and has spent 49 years struggling against the Castro regime—said at the same congressional hearing:

"It is indefensible and intolerable that this issue be used to play politics while lives hang in the balance and while the ability to assist exists ... While we cannot force the Castro regime into providing a quick and even response to the crisis, we can unleash the goodwill and humanitarian support that the Cuban American community is eager to provide."

It is ironic that the same people who obsess about the growing influence of Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez and Russia in the Western Hemisphere—countries that have already provided aid relief to the Cuban people—are the ones stuck in a political jockeying match with the Castro regime that does nothing for the interests of the Cuban people or the interests of the United States in the hemisphere. As a Chicago Tribune opinion writer noted, "When the Castro brothers are history and the Cuban people contemplate what comes next, what they'll remember is that in September 2008, Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin were their friends. And we weren't."

Canada Provides $700,000 in assistance

2008-09-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

Canada helps Cubans affected by Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike

The Government of Canada today announced a $400,000 contribution to assist the people of Cuba affected by Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike.

Of that amount, $200,000 will be transferred to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), allowing the IFRC and the Cuban Red Cross to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to 40,000 Cubans whose lives have been devastated by the impact of the hurricanes. Provisions will include water filters, temporary shelter materials, and other much-needed emergency supplies such as kitchen sets, jerry cans, mosquito nets, towels, mattresses and sheet sets. This is in addition to the $100,000 provided on September 6 for initial emergency responses in Cuba, Haiti and the Caribbean.

In addition, $200,000 has been set aside for the Cuba Community Development Fund to support relief and reconstruction proposals submitted by local Cuban organizations.

Canadian officials are monitoring all regions of the Americas that have been hit by the recent storms and will continue to work with trusted humanitarian partners to ensure that this assistance is making a difference.

– 30 –

Information:

Media Relations Office
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
Telephone: 819-953-6534
E-mail: info@acdi-cida.gc.ca

Hurricanes Could Produce Migration Crisis

2008-09-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

Cuba's October surprise

LAWRENCE WILKERSON AND PATRICK DOHERTY:

last updated: September 18, 2008 09:13:40 PM

If you live in Galveston, Texas, Hurricane Ike will be remembered for its destruction. But history may remember the ninth named storm of the 2008 season for swinging the 2008 presidential campaign.

That's because Ike devastated a little island off Florida named Cuba. In fact, Cuba sustained damage from four hurricanes: Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike. Gustav hit the Western end of Cuba as a Category 4 storm. Ike entered the east of Cuba as a strong Category 3 then shredded the full length of the island for three days. There were reports of walls of water 50 feet high hitting the north shore.

In a country of more than 11 million people, 2.7 million evacuated their homes when Ike came through. Today, 444,000 homes in Cuba are damaged, meaning up to 2.2 million Cubans are living dangerously or wondering when it will be safe to go home.

Food supplies on the island are nearly exhausted. The crops and livestock for domestic consumption and cash crops like tobacco and sugar cane, necessary for the hard currency to import food - are devastated. The island's electrical grid is severely damaged and in some places non-existent. Communication towers are down across the country. Roads are blocked with rubble from collapsed buildings, trees, or just washed away. Schools, hospitals, and clinics have suffered extensive damage or are non-functioning.

And it will only get worse. With at least $5 billion of damage done to a nation where the average monthly salary is $17, the economy will not be able to support the Cuban population for quite some time. Even the Cuban military is on short-rations with perhaps a week left. With food shelves empty, hoarding and black market price gouging will quickly squeeze all families, displaced or not, with little to no income and no subsistence agriculture to fall back on. As the vast majority of Cubans become malnourished and post-disaster diseases increase in prevalence, the political situation is likely to become much more volatile within Cuba.

All this could occur within the next six weeks. Faced with a displaced, hungry and frustrated population, Havana could do what it has done in the past: allow a mass migration to head north. In 1980, responding to unrest triggered by economic downturn, Havana launched the Mariel boatlift that brought 125,000 Cuban immigrants over a five-month period to South Florida. In 1994, facing another economic catastrophe, the Castro government allowed at least 35,000 Cubans to leave the island - an episode that cost the U.S. Treasury more than $500 million.

The U.S. government is now offering Cuba a $1.5 million package of temporary shelter for 10,000 families and household items for 8,000 with an additional $3.5 million conditional on the survey of a U.S. disaster assessment team.(1) In contrast, Haiti, which was hit by three storms, has already received $19 million in aid from the U.S. government. Even Burma, which has a military dictatorship more repressive than Cuba's and was ravaged by Cyclone Fargis, received $50 million in aid.

Indeed, an increase in funding for traditional humanitarian items is not what Cuba needs or wants from the United States. Their government believes that there would be no prospect of a crisis if the U.S. economic embargo were not blocking them from purchasing the needed supplies on the open market. It can get food from other countries in the region. Rather, Cuba's infrastructure needs repair. They need electrical components like poles, cable, and transformers. They need heavy-duty construction equipment and materials. The only market that can respond fast enough is the United States.

Without those supplies, the boats could very well sail before November. Americans with family in Cuba will be furious with the Bush administration for placing politics over saving lives. Cuban refugees who make it onto U.S. soil will benefit from the wet-foot/dry-foot policy that other Latino immigrants - a key demographic this cycle - view with considerable hostility. South Florida is already reeling from the domestic economic recession and a new load of low-skilled immigrants will put downward pressures on wages and exclusion will risk increased levels of criminal activity. At a minimum, CNN will be showing pictures of thousands of malnourished and water-logged Cubans being picked up on the high seas and then sent to the notorious U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo, only to be repatriated to a growing catastrophe.

It is now time to lift the embargo, let Cuba buy what it needs and move on. The U.S. policy of isolation to bring about regime change has failed to achieve its goals for fifty years. Fidel has grown old and retired. Cuba is no longer sponsoring revolution overseas but exporting doctors and nurses instead. And by giving Havana a ready-made excuse for economic failure, the embargo has the perverse effect of supporting the Castro regime rather than weakening it.

The Bush administration is between a rock and a hard place. If it continues with business as usual, Havana may very well decide the outcome of the U.S. elections. If it moves to end the embargo and Cuba purchases the supplies it needs to rebuild, it will have prevented the disaster that it foresaw but Cuba will cease to be an electoral goldmine for the GOP.

America needs to put politics aside. It is time to do the right thing. Protect the lives of innocent Cubans, protect our electoral process, end a 50-year-old failed policy, and be good Samaritans after all.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Patrick Doherty participated in the humanitarian operation in Kosovo and the Balkans. They are chairman and director, respectively, of the U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation, 1630 Connecticut Avenue NW, 7th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20009; Web site: www.newamerica.net.

This essay is available to McClatchy-Tribune News Service subscribers. McClatchy-Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of McClatchy-Tribune or its editors.

Test of Cuba MFA Statement Sept. 10

2008-09-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Yesterday, September 9, 2008, at 11:50 A.M., the Department of State conveyed to the Interests Section of Cuba in Washington Note Nº 252/18 in which, after expressing its regrets for the additional damage caused to the Cuban people by hurricane Ike, it insists in the visit to our country of a “humanitarian assessment team” to “inspect the affected areas”.

Today, September 10, at 7:20 P.M. the Interests Section of Cuba in Washington sent to the Department of State Note Nº 046/08, in which it conveys its appreciation for the expressions of regret by the Government of the United States for the damage caused in Cuba by hurricane Ike, and reiterates that Cuba does not require the assistance of a humanitarian assessment team as it has a sufficient number of trained specialists to deal with this task.

The Note emphasizes that if the Government of the United States is really willing to cooperate with the Cuban people it is requested to allow the sale to Cuba of indispensable material, such as materials for roofing, for building repairs and for the re-establishment of electric networks.

Likewise, it reiterates the request that the Government of the United States suspend the restrictions preventing U.S. companies from providing private commercial credits to Cuba for the purchase of foodstuffs in the United States.

The Note also calls the attention of the Department of State that the visit to Cuba of a humanitarian assessment team is not required to allow the sale of the aforementioned materials and to authorize private credits for the purchase of foodstuffs.

Lastly, the Note of the Interests Section of Cuba underscores to the Department of State that its Note Nº 252/18 insists in a request that the Government of Cuba had already replied to in Note Nº 1886 of September 6, 2008, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but, and it is highly significant, it does not actually respond to the two concrete requests made by the Government of Cuba to the Government of the United States in order to cope with the damage caused by hurricane Gustav, that it once again reiterates.

On the other hand, during the last few hours, spokespersons of the Government of the United States have attempted to justify the refusal by President Bush to allow the sale to Cuba of indispensable materials and to authorize private commercial credits to purchase foodstuffs in the U.S.

Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, affirmed categorically on Sunday, September 7: “I don’t think that (…) the lifting of the embargo would be wise”.

The Spokesman of the Department of State, Sean McCormack, insisted, on Monday, September 8, in a press briefing, on the alleged importance that Cuba accept an assessment team to inspect damage “in situ”. Responding to the observation of journalists that other countries have provided assistance without demanding a previous inspection of damage in the field, McCormack responded evasively: “”See if the Cuban Government changes its mind about allowing us to help the Cuban people”.

On his part, the Cuban American Carlos Gutiérrez, U.S. Commerce Secretary and Co-Chairman of the commission in charge of implementing the Bush Plan against Cuba expressed hypocritically yesterday: “…we reiterate our offer to allow a USAID team to travel to Cuba to assess the situation”.

This is a cynical attitude of the Government of the United States. It attempts to suggest that it is desperate to cooperate with Cuba, and that we are the ones refusing. It lies shamelessly.

Why does the Government of the United States insist in the pretext of carrying out an inspection “in situ” when the information disseminated regarding the serious effects caused by the hurricanes in Cuba is widespread and obvious?

Why does it use the precondition of sending an inspection team, something that no one else has done among the scores of countries that are already generously cooperating with Cuba?

Why does the Government of the United States refuse to allow Cuba to purchase materials for building repairs, roofing or components for the re-establishment of electrical networks in the U.S.?

Why does it forbid U.S. companies and their subsidiaries in all countries, to provide Cuba with private credit for the purchase of foodstuffs, which today are essential to ensure food for the affected population and to replace reserves in the event of new hurricanes?

These are the questions that the U.S. Government must answer.

These are the questions that the international community, that overwhelmingly supports Cuba in its struggle against the blockade, poses to the Government of the United States.

Cuba has not asked the Government of the United States for any gift whatsoever. Simply to be allowed to purchase.

Anything else is pure rhetoric, pretexts and justifications that no one believes.

Cuba will go forward. No hurricane, blockade or aggression will be able to prevent it.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba

Havana, September 10, 2008

Sisters of Charity Material Aid

2008-09-19T07:41:00.001-07:00

Miami nuns put politics aside to help storm-battered Cuba

BY MYRIAM MARQUEZ

Miami Herald Sep. 18, 2008

Behind the yellow tape blocking the side street in a residential neighborhood in Miami, dozens of volunteers under white tents pack empty Corona boxes with juice, beans, rice and medicines. Sister Rafaela Gonzalez, a sprightly 75, directs the action as the beep, beep, beep of a forklift topped with bottles of water alerts volunteers to move out of the way.

''This has been my job for 30 years,'' she says, smiling.

Her ''job'' in the Catholic order of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul is to serve the poor with good deeds as much as kind words. Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless -- Catholic works of mercy that know no political boundaries, only God's love.

As people from Miami to Washington debate loosening travel rules or the U.S. trade embargo toward Cuba after two back-to-back hurricanes, the nuns have nothing to debate. Their No. 1 job is saving lives as much as souls. The politicians and the demagogues can point fingers and raise suspicion about donated goods being skimmed by Cuban government officials, but the nuns have 14 years of experience seeing their containers get in the right hands.

Now is no time to debate. It's time to do -- and our community knows it.

The Daughters of Charity have found overwhelming support from South Florida residents eager to help more than a million Cubans left homeless by hurricanes Gustav and Ike. They're also helping direct supplies to two local Catholic churches -- Notre Dame and St. James -- that are organizing shipments to Haiti.

In just six days, the sisters have sent four 40-foot containers with $100,000 worth of food, water and medicines to the Port of Havana. Two of those containers already are feeding people in hard-hit Pinar del Río province. On Thursday, they prepared another two long containers as dozens of volunteers worked in synchronized fashion to categorize and pack boxes and fill the trucks.

Hialeah High School students dropped off a truckload of donated goods by noon. The mail carrier dropped off donations from as far as California. The phone wouldn't stop ringing.

THE BEGINNING

It all started with Sister Hilda Alonso, the 87-year-old nun who heads the Daughters of Charity in Miami. She ran the Colegio La Inmaculada, a school for girls in Havana before the revolution closed Catholic schools and kicked out priests and nuns. After teaching and running schools in Puerto Rico, and working in Haiti to open St. Vincent de Paul orders -- ''the need was so great'' -- she started her mission in Miami.

Since 1994, the six nuns have sent containers to Cuba with donated food, medicines and even medical equipment to help pregnant women, children with Down syndrome, patients with leprosy and the elderly in church-run retirement homes.

For years, her former Inmaculada students have dropped by the nuns' tidy, spare home with donations, knowing they will get to the right people.

As she sat at her metal desk next to her twin-size bed with a white cotton cover in her little bedroom, Sor Hilda, as the sister is called in Spanish, noted that by the end of this week the nuns will have shipped about six containers -- as much as they usually do in the entire year.

''It's been extraordinary, the generosity of those who live here,'' she told me, adding that people of all ethnicities were coming by to give.

It's not just goods -- it's also money that's needed. It costs $5,000 to ship a 40-foot container to Cuba.

I had heard about Sor Hilda's good works for years, and this summer I had visited her with a friend to learn more about this little woman from tobacco country in Pinar del Río who has taken on such a mammoth job. For all her years of hard work, she's still the Energizer Bunny -- but without the drums to call attention to herself.

As one Inmaculada volunteer told me Thursday about the nun she knew in Cuba, ``She is humility personified.''

NEVER STOPPING

Now the sisters are working around the clock to get emergency aid to Cuba. The sisters have a long record of getting U.S.-licensed goods to the island without Cuban government interference. Sor Hilda has gone there herself to ensure goods get to the nuns in La Víbora neighborhood in Havana who then distribute the donations.

The nuns in Cuba go to the docks and inspect the containers -- then one will ride with a trusted driver to make sure the food gets to those who need it and doesn't end up in the black market.

''We are sending to the places that have seen the worst devastation,'' she said.

Next week, the nuns will start collecting sheets and other needs. But today, it's all about food, water and other essentials.

Most of all, it's about unconditional love.

The Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul are accepting food, water, medicine and linens for hurricane victims in Cuba at 500 NW 63rd Ave., Miami. Or call 305-266-6485 for more information.

Chicago Tribune editorial

2008-09-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

Aid for the enemy

September 18, 2008

Americans have rightly focused on the terrible devastation Hurricane Ike caused in Texas and local residents' frustrated efforts to return and rebuild. Don't forget, though, that Ike caused havoc before it hit the U.S.

Back-to-back hurricanes, Gustav and Ike, destroyed thousands of homes in Cuba, wiped out crops across the island and knocked out much of its electrical grid. Cuba doesn't have the billions of dollars it needs to rebuild, but the Castro government wants nothing to do with the Bush administration's idea of help.

It would, however, like to buy some food and roofing nails and the like. The Bush administration says no.

U.S. officials have offered $100,000 in aid, but insist the money be funneled through independent humanitarian groups, not the Castro government. The U.S. State Department also offered to send disaster experts to assess the damage, hinting that more money would follow once the need was documented.

Cuban officials declined the offer, partly because they couldn't stomach the conditions and partly because Russia, Venezuela and others are willing to give money with no strings attached.

Long-standing animosity between the two governments makes it nearly unthinkable for Cuba to accept charity from the U.S., and vice versa. Then-Cuban President Fidel Castro offered to send one of his vaunted medical teams to help victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but the White House said no. The year before, Cuba sniffed at a U.S. offer of $50,000 in aid after Hurricane Charley, calling it "ridiculous and humiliating."

If the U.S. is sincere about helping this time, Cuba says, it can start by lifting restrictions that prevent Cuba from buying construction materials. It could also let Cuba buy food and supplies from U.S. businesses on credit, which would require a change in the policy—enacted in 2001 after Hurricane Michelle—that allows such sales, but only in cash.

Many Cuban Americans, meanwhile, want Bush to loosen restrictions on travel across the straits and suspend limits on how much money they can send to relatives on the island. They're joined by Sen. Barack Obama, who supported such changes even before hurricane season, and by Democratic congressional candidate Raul Martinez, who's trying to unseat Republican Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Cuba policy hard-liner.

Martinez and Obama are gambling that the once-formidable Cuban exile voting bloc is losing its grip on Florida politics, inviting better relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Others, including Obama's rival Sen. John McCain, aren't ready to go there.

The Bush administration says it may increase caps on how much Americans can donate to relief agencies working in Cuba, but the nearly 50-year-old trade embargo is off limits until Cuba releases its political prisoners, holds free and fair elections and embraces American-style democracy.

"The embargo is very separate," Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez says.

Tell that to the Cuban people reeling from the ravages of hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

In the twisted exile logic that has long dictated our policy toward Cuba, letting them go hungry is something we do for their own good. They'll thank us later, after they shake off the communists and see the light. Not likely.

When the Castro brothers are history and the Cuban people contemplate what comes next, what they'll remember is that in September 2008, Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin were their friends. And we weren't.

www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0918edit2sep18,0,4316155.story

Political Conflict Over Aid

2008-09-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

Posted on Wed, Sep. 17, 2008

Political dispute delaying U.S. storm aid to Cuba

BY FRANCES ROBLES

Miami Herald

In contrast to millions of dollars in relief aid sent to Haiti, the U.S. government has funneled just $100,000 to Cuba so far -- even as reports surface that the communist country's hurricane wreckage is far worse than the Castro government is letting on.

Cuba suffered island-wide destruction when Hurricane Ike smashed buildings and homes in 169 municipalities coast to coast. A new report by a Miami-based group made public Thursday indicates that 537,000 homes were damaged across the island, and 3.2 million people remain without power.

Haiti, also hit in the past weeks by a devastating string of storms that left hundreds dead and one million homeless, has received $20 million in U.S. aid.

The funding discrepancy comes as a diplomatic spat between Cuba and the United States mires relief efforts.

Although the U.S. government said Cuba's refusal to accept a disaster assesment team prevents it from doing more, criticism against Washington is beginning to mount.

The Bush administration is expediting licenses to U.S.-based organizations that allows an increase in cash that can be sent to residents on the island. Many are taking advantage of the new rules to help storm victims. But some say U.S. assistance is falling far short of what's needed.

Russia sent four cargo planes with tons of emergency supplies and construction materials, and Fidel Castro called Venezuela's aid ''most generous.'' China provided $300,000, and Cuba's state newspaper Granma said Brazil, Argentina and Mexico had also offered assistance. Spain also has sent planeloads of relief supplies.

''The United States, in the past, has acted honorably and quickly in response to hurricanes in Central America, tsunamis in Indonesia and earthquakes in Pakistan: they come in first, with the most resources and without conditions,'' said Frank Mora, a Cuba expert at the National War College in Washington.

''That has not been the case for Cuba. It's embarrassing and shameful that politics has inserted itself at a time when so many Cuban people on the island are suffering,'' Mora said.

Jorge Mas Santos, president of the Cuban American National Foundation, called the U.S. offer ``insulting.''

The U.S. government offered $100,000 and an inspection team after Hurricane Gustav hit western Cuba Aug. 30. Cuba turned down the offer, saying the country was not looking for giveaways but to make purchases.

Havana insisted the United States instead lift the provisions of the embargo that prevent Cuba from getting private credits from U.S. companies. The Cuban Foreign Ministry published a statement Thursday saying the U.S. State Department repeated the same offer Wednesday after Ike -- and it was again rejected.

''The United States government behaves cynically. It tries to suggest that it is desperate to cooperate with Cuba and that we refuse,'' the foreign ministry statement said. ``They lie unscrupulously. If they want to cooperate with the Cuban people, then we request allowing the sale to Cuba of indispensable materials, such as tarps for roofs and other items to repair homes and to reestablish the electrical network.''

Said U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez: ``Venezuela sent an assessment team -- it's standard procedure worldwide. It allows us to be effective, because it allows us to get what they want. The question is: Why do they feel threatened by the presence of a handful of technical experts who just want to help? I'm surprised that the assessment team has become such a big deal.''

The U.S. State Department said the team is not a precondition for aid but did not explain why aid wasn't sent after the team was refused.

''Although the Cuban government has declined the offer of a humanitarian assessment team, we remain willing to send one,'' State Department spokeswoman Heide Bronke said. ``We are evaluating how best to provide additional humanitarian relief for Cuban victims of this disaster.''

She added that the U.S. government increased existing authorizations for U.S.-based aid groups to provide more cash to help storm victims. CANF got such authorization, and the line grew quickly.

''We had over 400 people come fill out 600 applications,'' said CANF spokeswoman Sandy Acosta Cox. ``We were holding people in the parking area. It was like that all day.''

The political spat comes as new estimates on the extent of damages in Cuba begin to emerge. Miami-based business consultant Teo Babún, of Babún Group Consulting, said information coming from the island shows widespread devastation.

According to his organization's report, more than half a million homes were damaged and almost 350 bridges wiped out. He said 600 municipal water wells were damaged and some 500 miles of telephone and power poles are down. At least 150,000 people remain in shelters.

The town of Herradura, in the province of Pinar Del Río, was destroyed.

''I would say the situation in Cuba is similar to what we saw during Andrew in South Florida,'' Babún said. ``It's very, very bad.''

The damage estimate is from $3 billion to $4 billion, Babún said, but the Cuban government is unlikely to want to release such a dire assessment. That figure coincides with an estimate by the United Nations.

''I think the Cuban government first of all hasn't done a full assessment and is trying to double-check with their assessment teams,'' he said. ``Cuba is a military regime, so they are very concerned about providing information they consider secret or detrimental to the state. That is information they are not accustomed to giving out.''

The Cuban government also probably would be uncomfortable having a U.S. military warplane arrive in Cuba handing out aid, experts said.

''The Cuban government isn't accepting the U.S. donations; they only accept those from Russia and other friendly countries,'' said Diego Suarez of the Cuban Liberty Council. ``For them it is more important to not accept the U.S. donations than to help the people.''

Miami Herald staff writers Liza Gross, Casey Woods and Patricia Mazzei and translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.

http://www.miamiherald.com

Dodd statement and amendment summary

2008-09-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

This effective response brings relief to innocent victims of the storms and it projects an American message of concern and hope for our Caribbean neighbors.

Unfortunately, Mr. President, I can’t say the same for our response to the crisis caused by the hurricanes that have battered the lives of the 11 million citizens of Cuba. Evacuations of two million citizens helped reduce the loss of life, but the damage is immense. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike destroyed 150,000 homes and seriously damaged 200,000 others. The United Nations estimates that Cuba has suffered between $3 billion and $4 billion in losses. Hundreds of thousands of victims are without shelter, fresh water and electricity; damage to agriculture is massive; food and medicines are in short supply; and the need for materials to repair homes vastly overtakes supply.

The State Department has offered to disburse $100,000 in emergency funds through the United States Interests Section – our embassy in Havana – which is a step in the right direction. In addition, over the weekend, the State Department offered an emergency shipment of $5 million of assistance to Cuba. Cuban officials – in a short-sighted move, in my opinion – rejected the offer, saying they would not accept a handout from a country that would not sell those same items to them.

The Administration has also authorized certain U.S.-based NGOs – whose activities the Administration has previously approved – to provide larger amounts of humanitarian assistance, including cash donations to approved recipients in Cuba, for 90 days.

These government-approved channels for assistance to government-approved recipients are not nearly enough. They disallow, moreover, the outpouring of assistance from Americans who want to help directly and generously as Americans do in times of crisis – and not just through Administration-approved channels.

Large numbers in the Cuban-American community, eager to help family in Cuba directly, are blocked from doing so by tough regulations that the Administration implemented in 2004 in its effort to promote the collapse of the Castro regime. These regulations drastically impair Cuban-Americans’ ability to visit family in Cuba – even under extraordinary circumstances such as the death of a loved one – and drastically impair their ability to send cash assistance to family in the same manner as all other Caribbeans, Central Americans and Mexicans do.

Mr. President, it’s no secret that the US embargo on Cuba has been a dismal failure and, rather than weaken the Cuban government and force it to change, has only served to weaken the Cuban people and deprive them of hope. The Administration’s tougher regulations circumscribing Americans’ right to help family and friends in dire need in Cuba are part of that same failed policy.

Apparently some in the Bush Administration believe that holding firm on embargo policy – even during a humanitarian disaster – will discredit Fidel or Raul Castro and lead to their precipitous downfall. When human suffering is as massive as we see in Cuba today after these hurricanes, there’s no room for such cynicism.

Despite the obvious need for a total overhaul of policy toward Cuba, the amendment that Senator Lugar and I have introduced today addresses only the immediate humanitarian crisis, and only on a temporary basis.

For a period of 180 days, our amendment would lift prohibitions on Americans with family in Cuba to travel to the island to provide help and hope during the crisis.

Also for 180 days, it would ease restrictions on cash remittances by any American to Cuban people at this time of extreme need.

It would expand the definition of gift parcels that Americans are authorized to send to Cuban people or NGOs in the next 180 days to include food, medication, clothing, hygiene items and other daily necessities.

It would allow the cash sale, using mechanisms similar to those already in place for the sale of agricultural products, of certain items that Cubans need to rebuild their homes for a period of 180 days.

I want to be clear. These measures do not lift the embargo, but rather they merely loosen some of the less-humane regulations implemented in 2004 in direct response to a humanitarian crisis.

They are modest steps that allow the greatness and the generosity of the American people to shine through, without political and ideological filters. I can think of no better way of giving the Cuban people a message of hope than for them to feel the warm generosity and care of the American people.

The intent of this amendment has broad support. In a letter to President Bush last week, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote, “In light of the devastation and humanitarian disaster caused by recent hurricanes in Cuba and the efforts of extended families, friends and organizations to reach those in need, I urge you [President Bush] to suspend – even temporarily – Treasury and Commerce Department restrictions and licensing requirements for humanitarian travel and remittances by American citizens and assistance by not-for-profit organizations. At times of crisis, there are simple and basic acts of charity on which people rely.”

The Catholic Bishops and numerous NGOs are right, and we know it. We must help.

To those who think that refusing to help will somehow serve the U.S. national interest, I make just two observations. We need to be honest with ourselves: to be seen as wanting the Cuban people to suffer and starve – while we rush to the aid of their Caribbean neighbors – is not going to contribute to our common goal of promoting a peaceful, democratic transition in Cuba and good relations between our countries in the future.

Moreover, as we stand on the sidelines, other countries are more than willing to fill the vacuum. President Chávez of Venezuela has been “most generous,” according to press reports. Russia has sent four cargo planes with tons of emergency supplies and construction materials. China has provided $300,000, and Spain also has sent planeloads of relief supplies. Brazil, Argentina and Mexico are also offering assistance – without political restrictions.

Mr. President, our amendment takes modest steps to deal with massive need.

Full text here

Dodd, Lugar Amendment Text, Cosponsors

2008-09-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

Amendment to S3001, Defense Appropriations Bill

[Page: S8790]  GPO's PDF

SEC. 1253. EASING RESTRICTIONS ON GIFT OR RELIEF PACKAGES FOR 180 DAYS.

(a) In General.--Except as provided in subsection (d), for the 180-day period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, the President may not limit the size, quantity or frequency, or the carrying, transporting or shipping of personal gift items and relief supplies (not for sale or resale) that are eligible to be shipped through existing or new mechanisms established expressly for the delivery of such packages. Such items and supplies may be sent to Cuba by any person who is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and the President shall rescind, for such 180-day period, all regulations in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act that so limit such items.

(b) Personal Gift Items.--For purposes of this section, the term ``personal gift items'' includes goods intended to improve the daily life of the Cuban people, including clothing, medication, foodstuffs, personal hygiene items, and other daily necessities.

(c) Relief Supplies.--For the purposes of this section, the term ``relief supplies'' means any item intended to provide temporary or permanent shelter to hurricane victims in Cuba, or intended to facilitate repairs to personal dwellings in Cuba damaged during the 2008 hurricane season.

(d) Statutory Construction.--Nothing in subsection (a) may be construed to prohibit the prosecution or conviction of any person committing an offense described in section 1956 of title 18, United States Code (relating to the laundering of monetary instruments) or section 1957 of such title (relating to engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specific unlawful activity).

PART II--ALLOWANCE OF CASH SALE OF RELIEF SUPPLIES, FOOD, AND MEDICINES

SEC. 1261. EXEMPTION FROM PROHIBITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS ON CASH SALES AND EXPORT OF FOOD, MEDICINES, AND RELIEF SUPPLIES TO CUBA FOR A PERIOD OF 180 DAYS.

(a) In General.--Except as provided in subsection (b), for the 180-day period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, any prohibition or restriction in law or regulation on trade or financial transactions with Cuba shall not apply with respect to the cash sale and export of any agricultural commodity, farm machinery or equipment, medicine, medical device, or relief supplies, or with respect to travel incident to the sale or delivery of any agricultural commodity, farm machinery or equipment, medicine, or medical device, or relief supplies to Cuba.

(b) Exceptions.--Subsection (a) does not apply to--

(1) any prohibition or restriction imposed under the Export Administration Act of 1979 (50 U.S.C. App. 2401 et seq.) or successor statute for goods containing parts or components on which export controls are in effect under that section; or

(2) any prohibition or restriction imposed under section 203 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1702) insofar as the prohibition or restriction is exercised to deal with a threat to the national security of the United States by virtue of the technology incorporated in such machinery or equipment, or supplies.

(c) Supersedes Existing Law.--Subsection (a) supersedes the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (title IX of H.R. 5426 of the 106th Congress, as enacted into law by section 1(a) of Public Law 106-387, and as contained in the appendix of that Act) or any other provision of law.

SEC. 1262. DEFINITIONS.

In this part:

(1) AGRICULTURAL COMMODITY.--The term ``agricultural commodity''--

(A) has the meaning given the term in section 102 of the Agricultural Trade Act of 1978 (7 U.S.C. 5602); and

(B) includes fertilizer.

(2) MEDICAL DEVICE.--The term ``medical device'' has the meaning given the term ``device'' in section 201 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 321).

(3) MEDICINE.--The term ``medicine'' has the meaning given the term ``drug'' in section 201 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 7321).

(4) RELIEF SUPPLIES.--The term ``relief supplies'' means any item intended to provide temporary or permanent shelter to hurricane victims in Cuba, or intended to facilitate repairs to personal dwellings in Cuba damaged during the 2008 hurricane season.

Cosponsors

Sen Lugar, Richard G. [IN] - 9/15/2008
Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] - 9/15/2008
Sen Baucus, Max [MT] - 9/15/2008
Sen Kerry, John F. [MA] - 9/16/2008
Sen Feingold, Russell D. [WI] - 9/16/2008
Sen Leahy, Patrick J. [VT] - 9/16/2008
Sen Enzi, Michael B. [WY] - 9/16/2008
Sen Dorgan, Byron L. [ND] - 9/16/2008
Sen Harkin, Tom [IA] - 9/16/2008
Sen Lincoln, Blanche L. [AR] - 9/16/2008

Support for legislation to ease restrictions

2008-09-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

Cuba Groups Urge Hurricane Aid to Cuba

Last update: 11:12 a.m. EDT Sept. 18, 2008

WASHINGTON, Sept 18, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The Center for Democracy in the Americas, The Latin America Working Group, and The Washington Office on Latin America, released the following statement urging the U.S. government to provide hurricane relief for Cuba:

The United States has an opportunity to save lives - and to turn a diplomatic corner - if we can rise above politics and allow Cuban Americans to aid family members back in Cuba which has been savaged by two tropical storms and two hurricanes in just 30 days.

America's wealth, geography and large Cuban-American community make us ideally suited to see that Cubans now suffering get the shelter, food, drinking water and medicine they need. America's first instinct is always to aid victims and to save lives; we should give it free reign.

And what could be worse for the United States' standing in Latin America than to see governments as disparate as the European Union, Brazil, Venezuela, Russia, and China rushing to offer assistance to Cuba, while U.S. politics stop Cuban-Americans from responding to the needs of their relatives on the island?

Today, Cuban-American families are blocked from providing aid by restrictions tightened in 2004, and yet they could be the guiding force behind the delivery of humanitarian aid to the island.

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and co-sponsor Richard Lugar (R-IN) have offered an amendment that would temporarily allow Americans with families in Cuba to travel to Cuba or to send cash and parcels including food, medicine, clothing and other necessities to relatives in Cuba, to help them recover from hurricane damage. The legislation would also allow American merchants to sell Cubans the supplies they need to rebuild damaged homes to replant ravaged farms.

Representatives Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) have introduced similar bipartisan legislation which should be considered by the House.

This suspension of economic sanctions would last only 180 days. It would cost taxpayers nothing. It would allow families to take care of their own. And it would demonstrate that America is a compassionate nation, able and eager to help end the suffering of our friends, the Cuban people.

Now, before deprivation and disease do further damage to people's lives, Congress should pass this legislation and the President should sign it.

SOURCE Center for Democracy in the Americas

Follow up letter to Delahunt hearing

2008-09-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

September 18, 2008

The Honorable William Delahunt

The Honorable Jeff Flake

The Honorable Jo Ann Emerson

The Honorable Ray LaHood

The Honorable Ron Paul

The Honorable Donald Payne

Dear Esteemed Members of the House of Representatives

I wish to thank you for your comments and testimony on behalf of ending restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba at this morning’s hearing.

Because of the urgency of sending additional assistance to Cubans facing great hardship, I hope a means may be found to bring this issue to the floor of the House and Senate before the recess, perhaps in the form of a concurrent resolution urging that the President direct OFAC to establish until the end of his Administration a temporary general license for humanitarian travel, remittances and assistance by all Americans and IRS recognized not-for-profit organizations.

Hopefully bipartisan adoption will influence the President to reconsider his policy. His action and a recorded vote will be noted by some Americans casting ballots on November 4^th.

The following letter to the President, the Speaker and the Majority Leader of the Senate has in the last week been signed by a diverse group of more than 800 Americans, including many of Cuban origin, several of whom have attached moving personal comments.

“Because of the devastation suffered by Cuba from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and the history of conflict and suspicion between our countries, creative means must be found to enable the traditional compassion of Americans to express itself in assistance to the Cuban people in a timely fashion.

We urge an immediate 90 day suspension by Presidential order, or by legislation, of Treasury and Commerce Department restrictions and licensing requirements for humanitarian travel and remittances by all Americans and assistance from not-for-profit organizations granted tax-exempt status by the IRS.”

Signers list at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Cubafloodaid/signatures.html

The fastest and least politicized way for Americans to provide assistance to Cubans is to give all of us the freedom to go there and/or to use Western Union, with no intermediary institution receiving political or financial benefit, be it Cuban or American.

Sincerely,

John McAuliff

Executive Director

Petition transmission cover letter to Rep. Delahunt

2008-09-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

September 18, 2008

The Honorable William Delahunt

Chairman

Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight

US House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Chairman;

Congratulations for holding the important hearing this morning on “Families Torn Apart: Human Rights and U.S. Restrictions on Cuban-American Travel”.

No doubt one focus of today’s discussion will be special issues raised by hurricane caused devastation in Cuba and the widespread call for temporary suspension of restrictions on travel and remittances.

To that end, I wish to submit for the hearing record this letter and the attached on-line petition to the President and the Speaker of the House calling for a ninety day suspension of travel, remittance and aid restrictions for all Americans which in one week has been signed by a very diverse group of more than 800 persons, many of whom have attached moving comments.

(The continuously growing list can be found at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Cubafloodaid/signatures.html )

The text is attached along with a list of some of the initiating signers, many of whose names and organizations will be familiar to you.

A strikingly similar letter was written to President Bush by the President of US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Francis Cardinal George

I urge you to suspend -- even temporarily -- Treasury and Commerce Department restrictions and licensing requirements for humanitarian travel and remittances by American citizens and assistance by not-for-profit organizations.

While the need to address the special interest of Cuban Americans is understandable from both a humanitarian and political perspective, it is important to not create an invidious distinction between them and many other Americans who have close friends and professional colleagues in Cuba to whom they also wish to send personal support and visit at this moment of extreme need.

OFAC is to be congratulated for permitting the Cuban American National Foundation to in effect bypass remittance limits by serving as a channel for direct personal assistance to Cubans, whether or not family related. I wonder whether similar permission would be given to organizations which do not have a history of hostility to the Cuban government.

The fastest and least politicized way for Americans to provide assistance to Cubans is to give all of us the freedom to use Western Union and other public services, with no intermediary institution receiving political or financial benefit, be it Cuban or American.

Sincerely,

John McAuliff

Executive Director

Fund for Reconciliation and Development

cc: The Honorable Howard Berman

The Honorable Jo Ann Emerson

The Honorable Ray LaHood

The Honorable Thaddeus G. McCotter

The Speaker of the House

Cuba's Preliminary Damage Report

2008-09-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

Excerpted from Granma article of 9/16/08

For updated reports from the UN's Relief Web, click here.

And although during Gustav no human lives were lost, during the days of Ike — as was opportunely reported — we mourned the deaths of seven citizens in a number of provinces, not just as a direct result of the hurricane’s effects, but of a failure to strictly observe measures adopted by the Civil Defense authorities.

SUBSTANTIAL MATERIAL LOSSES

Very preliminary assessments of the damage caused in the less than 10 days during which the two hurricanes impacted national territory place total losses at around five billion dollars.

Unquestionably, one of the most calamitous effects of Gustav and Ike was on housing: more than 444,000 homes damaged, a large number of them with partially or totally destroyed roofs and other impacts; and of that total, 63,249 houses completely demolished.

Every province was affected. The final figures have not yet been determined, given that these could increase due to the combined effects of heavy rainfall and the passing of the first few days. However, the majority of the effects were directly related to those places hit hardest by the worst of the rainfall and winds, in addition to flooding and coastal deluges before, during and after: Pinar del Río and the Isle of Youth, particularly by Gustav (with its Category 4), and Holguín, Las Tunas and Camagüey by Ike (Category 3).

This may also be described as the most complex type of problem — not only because in the case of housing it leaves more than 200,000 people homeless for some time, and hundreds of thousands more whose homes require repairs — but because building and rebuilding involves financial investment and resources in the millions, and requires years of intense work.

MAIN EFFECTS OF GUSTAV IN OTHER AREAS

The preliminary assessment of Gustav’s damage reveals that the most significant impact was in the special municipality of the Isle of Youth and Pinar del Río province, mostly in the towns of San Cristóbal, Los Palacios, Consolación del Sur, Viñales, La Palma, Minas de Matahambre, Candelaria and Bahía Honda.

It should be taken into account that estimates of housing losses are based on historic and conventional prices, not real values at international prices. Suffice it to say that in order to have a durable house that can stand up to the fiercest winds, one essential element is necessary and very scarce: a labor force. This is needed both for temporary repairs and lasting construction. That labor force has to be divided among all centers of production and services, some significantly damaged, which is why the real value of a house in the world and the recovery of the corresponding investment is much greater.

• The situation is critical for the 120,105 houses affected by Gustav in Pinar del Río province, particularly in the municipalities of Los Palacios and San Cristóbal.

• Associated with impact on housing, more than 4,000 water storage tanks for apartment buildings were damaged.

• In western Cuba, serious impacts were reported on the electric power infrastructure:

Along the 220-kW Mariel-Pinar del Rio transmission line, 137 towers were destroyed, and along the 110-kW line, 13 towers were destroyed.

Among other elements: 4,500 posts knocked down, 530 transformers broken and 5,000 streetlights damaged.

• In the special municipality of the Isle of Youth, 100% of electrical lines were affected.

• More than 55,700 hectares of crops suffered total losses in western Cuba, mostly tubers and sugar cane. In addition, 877 organic vegetable gardens and 392 intensive farming sites were affected.

• Eighty percent of the Isle of Youth’s poultry industry was seriously affected, and 100% of that industry was affected in the eight municipalities of Pinar del Río that were hit.

• In the tobacco sector, 3,414 storage facilities were destroyed and 1,590 damaged, and more than 800 tons of tobacco was affected.

• More than 180,000 hectares of tree farms were affected.

• In industrial food production: 28 bakeries, eight sweet shops and a fruit and vegetable preserves enterprise were affected, mostly by the total loss of their roofs, but they did have generators.

• 4,355 tons of food in warehouses and neighborhood stores were affected.

• The main damage to the national radio system occurred as a result of the total destruction of its medium-wave towers (2) and the television tower on the Isle of Youth, affecting radio and television services. A similar situation occurred in Pinar del Río, to the towers of facilities in San Cristóbal, La Palma and Los Palacios and their three television centers. In Havana, the centers in Artemisa and Bauta were damaged.

• In telecommunications, 9,316 services were affected, most of them in the special municipality (7,797) and Pinar del Río (1,021).

• Losses are still being calculated in computer equipment, televisions and VCRs. In the health and education sectors, 794 computers were affected.

• In the public health sector in the western region, considerable damage was done to 31 facilities, including 26 hospitals, 18 polyclinics, 191 doctors’ offices, 14 senior citizen homes and 41 pharmacies, with the most critical situation on the Isle of Youth and several municipalities in Pinar del Río: San Cristóbal, Los Palacios, La Palma and Consolación del Sur.

• In education, 1,160 schools were affected, included 599 in Pinar del Río, 218 in La Habana province, 225 in City of Havana, and 87 on the Isle of Youth.

• Important installations were destroyed in the Nueva Gerona port, and the Isle of Youth’s airport, and almost all passenger transport was affected there.

MAJOR DAMAGE CAUSED BY IKE

Without assessments being concluded, at the close of this report on September 12, the worst damage by province occurred in the aforementioned provinces, mostly in the following municipalities:

• Guantánamo: Baracoa and Maisí.

• Holguín: mostly in the capital city of Holguín, Banes, Antilla, Moa, Rafael Freyre, Mayarí and Gibara.

• Las Tunas: the capital, Puerto Padre, Manatí and Jesús Menéndez.

• Camagüey: the capital, Nuevitas, Guáimaro, Najasa, Florida, Sibanicú, Minas and Santa Cruz del Sur.

• Ciego de Avila: the capital, Venezuela, Baraguá y Majagua.

• Sancti Spíritus: the capital, Trinidad and La Sierpe.

• Villa Clara: Manicaragua, Encrucijada, Santo Domingo and Sagua la Grande.

• Cienfuegos: Cumanayagua and Aguada de Pasajeros.

• Matanzas: the capital, Unión de Reyes, Calimete, Perico and Jagüey Grande.

All municipalities in those provinces were affected, with only the worst affected listed above. Losses in the other municipalities will not be ignored.

With respect to principal effects, major losses were reported in the provinces of La Habana and City of Havana, although proportionally not as much as in the rest of the country.

Once again, Pinar del Río and the Isle of Youth were lashed by the winds, and this time, much more by water. The aftereffects of the hurricane were slow to disappear.

• Electric power services were affected throughout almost the entire country, which was left in darkness by the direct effect of the wind and heavy rains and by the measures of protection applied to prevent further damage.

• Moreover, reconstruction work was complicated in almost every province 24 hours after the storm headed out to sea.

• Initially, electric power was reestablished with the use of micro-systems via generators, which are being gradually phased out with the activation of the National Electric Power System, except in the provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Granma and part of Guantánamo, where it was possible to connect them to the Renté thermoelectric power plant. Pinar del Río province and the special municipality of the Isle of Youth are still getting power from micro-systems, and will continue to do so until transmission lines are reestablished, which will be done as soon as possible.

As of September 12, the provinces had electric power in the following percentages: Las Tunas, Camagüey and Holguín: not above 30%, due to the magnitude of breakdowns in their basic distribution networks; Granma and Santiago de Cuba in excess of 99%, and Guantánamo, 94%, although Maisí and Baracoa, the hardest-hit municipalities, were at 53% and 79%, respectively; Ciego de Avila in excess of 92%; La Habana, almost 92%; Matanzas, 90%; Villa Clara, 87.2%; Cienfuegos, 94.7%; and Sancti Spíritus, 84%, all with their provincial capitals, as a rule, at higher percentages. Some of the most backward municipalities also suffered major damage to their grids.

City of Havana exceeded 98%, although there were specific outages to be resolved (burned-out transformers, branch lines, etc.), concentrated in Boyeros, Habana del Este, Plaza, Cerro and Playa.

The regions most compromised and complex, Pinar del Río and the Isle of Youth, were at a little over 55% and almost 67%, respectively.

• Mini- and micro-hydroelectric plants have been seriously affected.

• Wells for supplying manufactured gas to the capital have continued to operate. Only one Energás turbine is working to maintain vitality, for which some wells are being kept open to provide gas to the system.

• There are generalized outages in communications due to fallen trees, telephone posts and transmission towers, with some community television stations deactivated.

• Damage to agriculture is reported as a consequence of Ike in 205 greenhouses, and most of the facilities for semi-protected crops.

• All coffee-growing areas in eastern Cuba were affected, essentially destroying the harvest in some of the most productive municipalities due to the combined action of rain and wind in areas like Mayarí, Sagua de Tánamo, Maisí and Granma province.

• In the eastern provinces, 32,305 hectares of plantain were lost, plus more than 10,000 hectares of other crops.

• At the close of this report, more than 500,000 poultry had been registered as lost, 100,000 of which were slaughtered and sold to the population. Damage to poultry stock was significant in Sancti Spíritus, Matanzas, Las Tunas and Camagüey.

• In sugar cane, 156,600 hectares were reported as flattened, 518,879 hectares flooded and 3,895 hectares of new cane lost, and approximately 40,000 tons of sugar was reported as requiring reprocessing due to having got wet.

• There were also notable effects in the Ministry of Sugar varied crop areas, with damage recorded to more than 10,000 hectares of plantain, rice, beans and others, including organic vegetable gardens.

• Generalized serious effects to roofs and windows of industrial facilities were reported. Production at all factories was halted for different reasons, and many of these remain in that situation.

• The Ministry of Domestic Trade reported damage to 49,000 tons of storage capacity, with the worst to Holguín’s Warehouse Base, where 12,750 tons of products and 1,111 stores were seriously damaged.

• Partial or total destruction was reported to 2,642 Ministry of Education facilities, mostly roofs and windows, as well as 186 child care centers, and severe damage was reported to schools in Holguín, Las Tunas and Camagüey.

• The Ministry of Higher Education reported damage to the universities of Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, Matanzas, Villa Clara, Holguín; the municipal headquarters of Puerto Padre in Las Tunas and the Institute of Agricultural Science in Havana.

• Damage was reported to 146 cultural institutions and 82 sports facilities, including six sports initiation schools (EIDE); 13 athletics colleges (ESPA) and academies; two faculties of Physical Culture; five provincial baseball stadiums and 32 municipal ones; eight multipurpose auditoriums; 13 community schools and two swimming pool complexes.

• In health facilities, the greatest damage reported was to the neonatal services of the Enrique Cabrera, Aballí, Gineco-Obstétrico Eusebio Hernández, 10 de Octubre and William Soler hospitals, as well as the Fructuoso Rodríguez Orthopedic Hospital.

• Roads were affected by fallen trees and flooding. All the bridges on Cayo Coco causeway and its water pipeline were damaged. Access, with much precaution, can be had over La Farola, Guantánamo province; the Las Tunas-Holguín and Holguín-Moa sections are being inspected, and access was blocked on two sections of the National Highway. Thousands of kilometers of roads and streets were damaged throughout the country.

• Seven ports are closed and there is serious damage to the roofs of port warehouses in Vita, Carúpano and Nuevitas, with damage to pedestrian walkways and signs at the entrances to all ports.

Seven Dead, $10 Billion in Destruction

2008-09-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

Cuba death toll from Ike rises to seven

Havana_(dpa) _ Even as Ike continued to wreak destruction across Texas on Saturday, its costs were still being tallied, as Cuba reported another three deaths from the storm.

The general staff of the Cuban military said the death toll had risen to seven, up from the four deaths reported earlier this week.

It estimated damages in the billions of dollars, but said it had not yet been able to tally a final overview.

More than 100,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged.

The representative of Germany's Welthungerhilfe in Cuba, Richard Haep, estimated damages at more than 10 billion dollars.

Ike and its predecessor, Hurricane Gustav, had fully destroyed the banana plantations.

Deputy Agricultural Minister Alcides Lopez said agricultural production had been 90-per-cent destroyed in the eastern provinces of Holguin and Las Tunas.

"After the hurricanes, the entire agricultural sector will have to begin again at zero," Haep said.

Over the past week, Ike killed 72 people on Haiti and, on Saturday, another three people in Texas. dpa fs pr wjh

Source: Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA)

Date: 13 Sep 2008

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MUMA-7JG3HA?OpenDocument&rc=2&cc=cuba

Challenge of sending aid to Cuba

2008-09-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

Aid's path to Haiti, Cuba is fraught with obstacles

South Florida residents are eager to help hurricane victims, but delivering aid is a tricky and time-consuming process.

By JACQUELINE CHARLES, TRENTON DANIEL AND CASEY WOODS

cwoods@MiamiHerald.com

The long, confrontational history between Cuba and the United States creates a uniquely delicate political dynamic, although the distribution of aid is generally well run once it arrives on the island. With Haiti, the biggest problems are shipping delays and roads and bridges now swept away by flooding.

With Haiti, it often takes five weeks or more for an aid shipment to reach those who need it. With Cuba, once the bureaucratic hurdles are cleared, it can take as little as five days.

…

With Cuba, the complications in getting aid to the affected come on the front end, with the sometimes complex process of securing permission to send supplies or money to the communist country. Because of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, aid organizations must be licensed to send money or goods or to travel to the island.

Many organizations were turned down in the past. Others have fought legal battles to keep licenses that the United States declined to renew.

''This administration has put every obstacle it can in front of people like me,'' said Eddie Levy of Jewish Solidarity in Miami, which is licensed to send cash donations and powdered milk to the Sephardic Jewish community in Havana.

As damage estimates continue to mount in Cuba, the U.S. government has responded with expedited licenses for agencies that provide humanitarian aid. Several local groups reported getting new licenses in recent days at a faster pace than usual.

The U.S. government also increased the amount of cash that groups with existing authorizations could send to Cuban storm victims.

Despite those changes, the embargo can spook individuals who are otherwise inclined to help.

Tom Cooper, of South Florida's Gulfstream Air, has agreed to help Jewish Solidarity and another local charity take food and powdered milk to Cuba. His company operates daily charter flights to the island, but is uncertain about taking relief shipments. His lawyers are checking on whether the company is allowed to deliver aid supplies.

Several aid groups say that once goods reach Cuba, they move through a relatively swift distribution system.

Catholic Charities, for example, is using local donations to purchase 40,000 pounds of beans, rice and canned goods for the island. The goods are turned over to Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. church's international relief and development arm. That agency has a license to ship humanitarian items, and is currently preparing at least five containers for Cuba.

In Havana, workers from Caritas Cuba, a charity church branch, will meet the shipment when it arrives. Government trucks distribute the aid.

''Things have gone relatively smoothly as long as we inform the government we are coming,'' said Lynn Renner, Catholic Relief Services' Caribbean representative. ``The government has assured Caritas that everything that comes into the country will be distributed immediately on a fast track . . . because the needs are tremendous right now.''

Full article at http://www.miamiherald.com/457/story/685645.html

NY Times Editorial on Remittances and Aid

2008-09-12T07:20:00.000-07:00

September 12, 2008

Editorial

Help for Cuba and Haiti

The devastating string of tropical storms and hurricanes that rushed through the Caribbean in the last month — Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike — left hundreds dead and tens of thousands of people hurt and displaced in Haiti. The country’s crops appear to be destroyed. In Cuba, Gustav and Ike destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of homes. A fifth of the population was evacuated to higher ground.

The scale of devastation calls for an extraordinary assistance effort that is, so far, not happening. While the United States has offered some emergency aid to Haiti, it has not done enough for an impoverished nation that Americans have a moral responsibility to help. And the Bush administration’s peculiar fixation with an obsolete trade embargo and deep-pocketed anti-Castro hard-liners in Miami is standing in the way of dispatching desperately needed assistance for Cuba.

In the last week, Washington has announced $10 million in aid for Haiti. It sent the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge, which carries helicopters and airplanes, to assist in the relief effort. It is a good start. But Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, will need more. Only half the American aid is new money — the rest is being diverted from less urgently needed programs. And the United Nations has asked for more than $100 million to help those stricken by the storm.

Aid to Cuba is being complicated by outdated cold-war politics. The United States has, so far, offered only $100,000 in aid, with a promise of more if Cuba allows an American team in to assess the damage. Havana has foolishly rejected it. And the United States is refusing to temporarily ease core aspects of the longstanding trade embargo to help Cuba deal with the emergency.

The Treasury Department increased the dollar limit that organizations authorized to work with Cuban dissidents may send to Cuba. But Washington is refusing Cuba’s request to buy American construction materials to rebuild homes and repair the mangled electricity grid. It won’t allow Cuba to buy American food on credit, and it has, so far, refused to lift restrictions on the money that Cuban-Americans may send back to their relatives.

We believe the embargo against Cuba is about as wrongheaded a policy as one can devise. It gives credibility to the regime in Havana while contributing to the misery of ordinary Cubans, all for the sake of some votes in Florida. But we are not even asking the Bush administration to lift the embargo forever. The right thing to do to alleviate the crisis wrought by the storms is to temporarily lift all the restrictions on private remittances and private aid flows to Cuba.

Statements from Rep. Berman, Serrano., Flake and others

2008-09-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

Howard Berman, Chair, House Foreign Affairs Committee, Asks Bush to Lift Some Restrictions on Cuba Visits, Gifts, and Remittances to Allow for Hurricane Assistance

Van Nuys, CA – Congressman Howard L. Berman (D-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today asked President Bush to suspend for 90 days U.S. legal restrictions on visits, remittances and gifts to people in Cuba so that Cuban Americans might assist family members whose lives have been upended by Hurricane Gustav.

“We have the opportunity now to harness the deep desire and capacity of Cuban American families to assist their loved ones in this time of great need by temporarily suspending regulatory restrictions on Cuban American visits, remittances, and gift parcels,” Berman said in a letter to Bush. “There is no more effective way to urgently get relief to Cubans in need than to lift U.S. government restrictions to allow direct family assistance. …. Whether or not one agrees with current US policy toward Cuba, the entire spectrum of opinion on the issue shares the goal of providing relief for the citizens and people of Cuba in a time of great hardship.”

Gustav hit Cuba at Category Four strength, heavily damaging crops, housing and infrastructure. Authorities there report that about 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed; officials in the Cuban Catholic Church and leading dissidents have launched international appeals for assistance.

“I am aware,” wrote Berman, “of the difficulties in the past of getting Cuban authorities to accept U.S. government offers of help. While I believe such an offer should still be made in this case, provided Cuban authorities permit conditions for its effective delivery, we should not make this the U.S.’s only attempt to assist the Cuban people devastated by Gustav.”

*******************************

Letter to President Bush from Representatives Flake, Delahunt, Emerson, McGovern, Moran, Delauro, Lahood and Meeks

*******************************

SERRANO CALLS FOR SUSPENSION OF REGULATORY RESTRICTIONS IN ORDER TO HELP CUBA RECOVER FROM HURRICANES

Washington, DC – September 8, 2008 – Congressman José E. Serrano sent the following letter to President George W. Bush today, following the devastation of Cuba by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The text of the letter follows:

***

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing to add my voice to that of the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Howard Berman, calling for a suspension of regulatory restrictions for travel and remittances to Cuba by Cuban-Americans. Lifting these restrictions will help to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Cuba caused by the recent hurricanes.

First, Hurricane Gustav damaged homes, infrastructure and crops across the island. Now, Hurricane Ike has caused the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people in Cuba and will add to the damage to buildings and agriculture. Because of this repeated battering, I agree with Chairman Berman that we should examine all possible avenues for providing assistance to Cuba.

As a government we should reach out and offer assistance to the Cuban people, but one of our best resources for providing timely and accurate assistance is the many Cuban-Americans with families back in Cuba. They personally understand the situation in Cuba and will know what their families need. In order to tap this great resource, I believe that Chairman Berman’s proposal of a 90 day suspension of regulatory restrictions on visits, remittances and gifts is reasonable and would allow Cuban Americans to help their relatives recover from the storms.

This is not a time to focus on policy differences over the merits of the Cuban government, nor on the long term differences between our two governments. It is a time to acknowledge the human suffering and hardship that is ongoing in Cuba and to take steps to alleviate it.

This is an opportunity for our nation to show its compassion for those who are suffering. I encourage you to take the necessary measures to allow direct assistance to the Cuban people from their family members in the United States.

Contact your own Representative and Senators by clicking here.

Cuba Wants to Buy Rebuilding Materials

2008-09-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Cuba seeks to buy US materials for Ike recovery

By Associated Press | Thursday, September 11, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Americas

HAVANA - Cuba has turned down U.S. storm relief handouts, but is asking for trade restrictions to be lifted so it can buy American materials to assist in its recovery from Hurricane Ike, officials said today.

"Cuba hasn’t asked the United States government to give it anything," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma. "Simply that it lets us buy."

The Foreign Ministry said it has for the second time turned down a U.S. government offer to send a disaster assessment team to the island, insisting that Cuban experts are capable of assessing damage wrought by Ike when it ravaged the island this week.

Cuba says it wants some U.S. trade restrictions lifted instead, so it can buy American roofing and other construction materials to repair homes and the island’s electrical grid. It also wants the U.S. to allow lenders to give credits to help Cuba buy U.S. foods, which law already permits Americans to sell to the island on a cash-only basis.

Hurricanes Ike and Gustav, which struck last week, together damaged 320,000 homes on the island, Cuban civil defense officials reported Thursday.

The Cuban government has not released an overall damage estimate, but the tally could surpass $2 billion. According to official figures, the average cost of constructing a new home in Cuba is US$8,000, and the storms also caused widespread damage to agriculture and electrical grids.

Possible U.S. aid to Cuba has been complicated by a half-century standoff between the two countries, which includes a broad U.S. trade embargo.

After Ike, the United States offered to give Cuba US$100,000 in emergency aid and send a disaster team from a non-governmental organization to assess damage. Cuba has expressed no interest, insisting that the U.S. could best help by allowing Cuba to buy American materials to undertake its own recovery.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday rejected the idea of lifting any aspect of the embargo.

The Foreign Ministry said U.S. government assists many other countries without sending inspection teams to tour them. The U.S. "tries to suggest that it is desperate to cooperate with Cuba and that we are turning them down," it said.

On Wednesday, Cuban-born U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez told The Associated Press that the U.S. may ease some financing restrictions against Cuba, allowing Americans to donate more to relief groups that are providing aid to parts of the storm-ravaged island.

Still, Washington is not considering suspending any other part of its embargo, Gutierrez said.

Some aid organizations already had a presence in Cuba, including Baltimore, Maryland-based Catholic Relief Services, which offered US$130,000 following Gustav and has pledged to give more once it has a better idea of Ike’s damage.

Cuban-American groups and several Democratic members of Congress have called on the Bush administration to relax restrictions on travel and remittances for people to visit and take cash and goods to relatives in Cuba.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is among them.

Article URL:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/americas/view.bg?articleid=1118455

Washington Post Column by Cuba Study Group Board Member

2008-09-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

Cuba's Katrina

By Ignacio Sosa
Thursday, September 11, 2008; A17

Hurricane Gustav hit Cuba this month with 140-mph winds, just shy of being a Category 5 storm as Hurricane Katrina was. The most severe hurricane to hit Cuba in 50 years, it has displaced more than 400,000 Cubans and damaged or destroyed more than 130,000 homes. Agriculture in the western province of Pinar del Rio has been virtually wiped out. Fidel Castro himself said that Pinar del Rio resembles Hiroshima after it was bombed. This week, Hurricane Ike barreled down the length of the island, making landfall twice, damaging more than 27,000 homes and killing at least four people.

The damage to Cuba's economy from Gustav alone will be much worse proportionately than what the United States suffered after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Yet the United States has pledged only $100,000 in aid to Cuba, enough to rebuild just a handful of homes. Cuba has declined this aid, calling it insufficient. Complicating matters are U.S. laws limiting the ability of Cuban Americans to send direct aid to their families or to visit relatives.

What the long-suffering Cuban people need is not U.S. government aid. The Cuban people need both governments to get out of the way and allow Cuban Americans and private American relief organizations to help Cubans get back on their feet.

The United States should take the initiative and unilaterally lift, temporarily, all restrictions on remittances and family visits. Any U.S. charity wishing to help should be allowed to do so freely. No one knows how the Cuban government would respond to such a humanitarian gesture. Cuba's leaders know, however, that they will be held accountable by an increasingly restless population if much-needed aid is denied for ideological reasons.

The devastation in Cuba also provides an opening for the presidential candidates. Cuban Americans in the decisive electoral state of Florida are restless. Cuban Americans there are historically Republican, but many are bewildered that the party that extols family values prevents them from helping or visiting their families.

Barack Obama has recognized this and supports temporarily lifting restrictions on family remittances, travel and private aid to the impoverished island. John McCain should do the same, even if only to ensure he gets the bulk of the Cuban American vote as George W. Bush did in 2004.

Ultimately, helping Cubans recover is in the best interest of the United States. A humanitarian catastrophe 90 miles from our shores is also a national security issue.

It is impossible to predict the political consequences of temporarily lifting restrictions on Cuba. But those who are suffering care little about politics. They just want roofs over their heads, food to eat and perhaps a visit from relatives in Miami to cheer them up. It's time for the United States to show the world once again that it will not allow politics to get in the way of people helping themselves in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Ignacio Sosa is member of the executive board of the Cuba Study Group.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/10/AR2008091002723.html

Pastors for Peace Construction Brigade Planned

2008-09-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

IFCO/Pastors for Peace

CALL TO ACTION FOR CUBA

Dear Friends,

Like all of you, IFCO has been watching with heavy hearts as Hurricanes Gustav, Hannah and Ike have ravaged the Caribbean.

IFCO is organizing a variety of disaster responses this week.

Here is how you can help:

1. Help us organize an IFCO-Pastors for Peace Construction Brigade

of 30-50 skilled carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc. They and a small number of support individuals will travel to Cuba for approximately two weeks to assist in the reconstruction of social projects-i.e. schools, hospitals, medical facilities, home for the elderly, etc

This brigade will arrive in Cuba with tools and humanitarian aid collected from our friends.

As usual this aid will be delivered to the Ecumenical Distribution Committee which will distribute the aid wherever it is needed most.

2. Help us organize a mini-caravan to gather aid that Cuba says they need.

3. Send a generous donation. IFCO has established a Hurricane Relief Fund to respond as best we can to the needs of our brothers and sisters in Cuba.

The magnitude of need in Cuba has reached historic proportions. Each of us can contribute in some way to the recovery effort. You have helped us in the past.

Our friends in Cuba need our support now more than ever before.

Please be as generous as you can. Send your tax-exempt contributions to

IFCO, 418 W. 145th Street, New York, NY 10031 212-926-5757 by phone or by snail mail or

donate online at our website.

Let us help Cuba rebuild with no strings attached!

All contributions are tax deductible. IFCO is a 501c3 non profit organization.

And please dont forget to urge other people of faith, conscience and good will to contribute in any way possible to this effort.

Important: Please designate all contributions with the word Hurricane. Do not use the word "Cuba" in the subject notation line of your check or with an online donation.

Donating on line is safe, simple and straight forward:

Go to <http://www.ifconews.org/>www.IFCONEWS.org contributions online

Designate your donation amount and write Hurricane Relief in the box online

IFCO/PASTORS FOR PEACE

418 W 145th Street, New York, NY 10031

tel: 212.926.5757 - fax: 212.926.5842 - email: ifco@igc.org,

<http://www.ifconews.org/>www.ifconews.org

St. Augustine Group Helping Baracoa

2008-09-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

Group Collects Donations for Hurricane Ike Victims in Cuba

Posted By: Cindy Krenek 1 hr ago

ST. AUGUSTINE, FL -- A group from St. Augustine is collecting money to buy supplies for Hurricane Ike victims in Cuba.

The St. Augustine-Baracoa Friendship Association will collect money, buy supplies in Canada, then take them to Baracoa, Cuba.

Kristy Weeks is part of the Friendship Association.

"We've developed very close friendships with the people of Baracoa over the last eight years in the ten trips we've been there. So they're very near and dear to our hearts," Weeks said.

The St. Augustine based non-profit group is licensed to do humanitarian and environmental work in Cuba.

The group has permission to travel to Cuba. Its members have helped in day cares, health programs, and recently they helped a Cuban woman who is cleaning up toxic landfills in the country.

So the Friendship Association was crushed to see Hurricane Ike wallop Baracoa.

Weeks said she recognized places she saw on the news. She said she saw video of a huge wave hit the home of a man the group visited once.

So Weeks and the Friendship Association are asking for donations for hurricane relief supplies that they will send to Cuba.

Weeks said, "It's very upsetting. Very sad for us because they lead such a difficult life on a daily basis just trying to gather food for their families. Now they have this spin out on top of them, it's just very sad."

The group is asking for money donations and they will buy the specific supplies the Cubans need, once they learn what those needs are.

If you'd like to help, send checks to:The Friendship AssociationP.O. Box 861086St. Augustine, FL 32086

Put "Hurricane Relief" on the note section of the check.

Click here for a link to the association's web site.

First Coast News

US Bishops Conference Calls for Suspension of Restrictions

2008-09-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Bishops Ask U.S. to Permit Remittances and Travel to Cuba Given Hurricane Crisis

Last update: 5:11 p.m. EDT Sept. 10, 2008

WASHINGTON, Sept 10, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The U.S. bishops asked the U.S. government to lift its ban on remittances and travel to Cuba, even temporarily, in light of the crisis caused by recent hurricanes.

The request was made in a September 10 letter from Cardinal Francis George, OMI, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, to President George Bush. The letter follows.

Dear Mr. President:

In light of the devastation and humanitarian disaster caused by recent hurricanes in Cuba and the efforts of extended families, friends and organizations to reach those in need, I urge you to suspend -- even temporarily -- Treasury and Commerce Department restrictions and licensing requirements for humanitarian travel and remittances by American citizens and assistance by not-for-profit organizations.

At times of crisis, there are simple and basic acts of charity on which people rely. Churches, as well as governments, urge people to reach out and respond with generosity to those in desperate need. The United States has a tradition of such assistance for which it can be rightly proud. At this time, all should be done to facilitate humanitarian assistance, be it through institutions like Catholic Relief Services, or through the generosity of individuals moved by the misfortune of their brothers and sisters. Removing restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba are a necessary step which I urge you to take without delay.

USCCB has long-opposed U.S. sanctions on Cuba because of their failure to foster greater freedom, democracy and respect for life. In our judgment, restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba, especially by family members, are onerous and counterproductive. Under current circumstances, they are particularly unjustifiable and need to be relaxed.

In prayerful support for your efforts to assist all those affected by these ongoing weather emergencies, I remain.

Sincerely,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI

Archbishop of Chicago

President

US Conference of Catholic Bishops

Initiating Signers of Letter to the President and Leaders of Congress

2008-09-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

Dear President Bush, Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker Pelosi

cc: Senator McCain and Senator Obama

Because of the devastation suffered by Cuba from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and the history of conflict and suspicion between our countries, creative means must be found to enable the traditional compassion of Americans to express itself in assistance to the Cuban people in a timely fashion.

Add your name here

or go to http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Cubafloodaid/

Initiating Signers to date (9/9/08)

Mavis Anderson, Senior Associate, Latin America Working Group

Merri Ansara, Director, Common Ground Education & Travel

Isidro (Chilo) Borja, President, Foundation for the Normalization of US/Cuba Relation

Peter G. Bourne, Chair, Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba

Majorie Cohn, President, National Lawyers Guild

Albert A. Fox, Jr., President, Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation

H. Bruce Franklin, Professor of English and American Studies, Rutgers University-Newark

Jane Franklin, Historian

Dr. Douglas Friedman, Director of the Latin American & Caribbean Studies Program, College of
Charleston

Art Heitzer, Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba

Daniel Hellinger, Professor of Political Science, Webster University

Andrea Holbrook, Travel Industry Committee on Cuba, Holbrook Travel

Kathleen G. Hower, Executive Director, Global Links

Kirby Jones, Alamar Associates

Carlos Lazo, Cuban American political activist

Jeanne Lemkau, PhD, Professor Emerita Wright State University

Sandra Levinson, Center for Cuban Studies

Delvis Fernandez Levy, Cuban American Alliance Education Fund

Pamela Ann Martin; Molimar Export Consultants, Inc.

Antonio C. Martinez II, Martinez & Associates

John McAuliff, Executive Director, Fund for Reconciliation and Development

Kirsten Moller, Executive Director, Global Exchange

Robert Muse, Attorney

Julio V Ruiz, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry/Geriatric, State University of New York

Ruben G. Rumbaut, ENCASA/US-CUBA

Bob Schwartz, Executive Director, Disarm Education Fund

Wayne Smith, Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy

Melinda St. Louis, Executive Director, Witness for Peace

Sarah Stephens, Executive Director, Center for Democracy in the Americas

Geoff Thale, Program Director, Washington Office on Latin America

Nelson P Valdes, Emeritus professor, University of New Mexico

Richard Walden, President, Operation USA

Silvia Wilhelm, Cuban American Commission for Family Rights

Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, USA (Ret), Visiting Harriman Professor of Government and
Public Policy at the College of William and Mary

Antonio Zamora, US/Cuba Legal Forum, Inc.

MEDICC Appeal for Isle of Youth

2008-09-08T15:00:00.001-07:00

Rebuilding a Dream: MEDICC Needs Your Help

ATLANTA, GA, September 5, 2008 -- The Isle of Youth was one of two Cuban regions hardest hit by Gustav, the worst hurricane to ravage Cuba in the last 50 years. The small island south of the mainland is well-named: it is home to over 5,000 students of medicine, about half Cuban and half students from low-income families in Latin America and the Caribbean who have pledged to serve in poor communities when they graduate.

While all the students and faculty are safe, their Faculty of Medicine was totally destroyed by the winds - blasts so fierce they riveted pieces of roofing into tree trunks and chair legs into door frames.

Picking up the pieces, the most urgent tasks for the Isle are restoring sources of food, electricity and water. Next, rebuilding their homes: of 25,000 houses, 20,000 were at least partially affected, 10,000 roofs blown away. But the bigger task ahead is to restore the Isle’s institutions, the livelihoods of its 85,000 residents—and its schools.

The Faculty of Medicine, even in temporary facilities, desperately needs to replenish stocks of reference textbooks lost when its buildings were destroyed.

MEDICC (Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba) already has one shipment of books on the way: help us send at least five more.

Thanks to the Free Trade in Ideas Act, medical literature is exempt from the otherwise draconian US embargo on Cuba, so these books can be airlifted directly to Cuba as soon as they can be purchased.

Send your tax-deductible donation to MEDICC, Hurricane Fund, 1902 Clairmont Road, Suite 250, Decatur, GA 30033. Make your check payable to ‘MEDICC’. Or donate online at https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=18349. Check the “Textbooks & Journals to Cuban Medical Schools” program, which will be dedicated exclusively to the Isle of Youth Medical School through the end of 2008.

The future physicians of Cuba, Latin America and the Caribbean will surely join your dollars with their good works to make a difference in the communities they’ll serve.

ABOUT MEDICC

Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC) is a US non-profit organization based in Atlanta, Georgia and Oakland, California working to enhance cooperation among the US, Cuban and global health communities aimed at better health outcomes. Founded in 1997, MEDICC supports education and development of human resources in health committed to equitable access and quality care, providing the Cuban experience to inform global debate, practice, policies and cooperation in health.

MEDICC’s Textbooks & Journals Program for Cuban Medical Schools has shipped multiple copies of over 100 latest-edition books to Cuba’s 23 medical schools over the last five years.

For a look at MEDICC programs, visit: www.medicc.org. See also: MEDICC Review’s current issue, which we have made available FREE online, outlining Cuba’s Strategies for Disaster Management, at www.medicc.org/mediccreview.

Press Contacts:

Murlean Tucker

Program Manager

admin1@mediccatlanta.org

Phone: 678-904-8091

Rice Rejects Ending Embargo

2008-09-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

Rice: Not wise to end Cuban economic embargo now

By MATTHEW LEE – 10 hours ago

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — The Bush administration said Sunday it sees no wisdom now in ending an economic embargo against Cuba, a longtime demand the Havana government renewed as a way to speed aid after Hurricane Gustav swamped the island.

A U.S. offer to send a disaster assessment team was declined Saturday by the Cuban Foreign Ministry, which did not mention the $100,000 in humanitarian assistance that Washington also offered through nonprofit groups.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, wrapping up a trip to North Africa, told reporters that President Bush consistently has said the U.S. would be responsive "to a Cuban regime that is prepared to release political prisoners (and) has a process to get to free and fair elections." But, she added, "we can see nothing that suggests that has come about."

Cuba said Saturday it would rather Washington suspend restrictions on travel and the sale of food and other materials it needs to recover.

With another powerful storm, Hurricane Ike, bearing down, the Cuban ministry contended that "the only correct, ethical (action) ... would be the total and definitive elimination of the harsh and cruel economic, commercial and financial blockade applied over nearly a half century against our nation."

Rice said that did not seem possible under current conditions, with Raul Castro in charge after replacing his brother, Fidel, who stepped down in February.

"What we can't do is to have the transfer of power from one dictatorial regime to another," Rice said. "That is not acceptable in a Western Hemisphere that is democratic and it is not acceptable for the Cuban people. So I don't think in the context that we see now that the lifting of the embargo would be wise."

As Ike struck eastern Cuba on Sunday night, the State Department issued a travel warning, authorizing the departure of non-emergency personnel and eligible family members of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. "U.S. citizens in Cuba who do not have access to adequate and safe shelter should consider departing while commercial flights are still available," the department said.

Last week, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama issued a statement expressing sympathy for Cubans who had been hit hard by Gustav. He asked Bush "to immediately suspend restrictions on family remittances, visits and humanitarian care packages from Cuban Americans for a minimum of 90 days."

Also last week, five Cuban-American members of Congress urged the Bush administration to provide direct assistance to Gustav's victims in Cuba. They said, however, that aid could be provided without changing U.S. law to lift the restrictions.

Currently, people of Cuban origin living in the U.S. can visit the island only once every three years and can send money only to members of their immediate families, excluding cousins, aunts and uncles.

Fidel Castro wrote this past week that recovery from Gustav could cost billions of dollars on an island where the average state salary is only about $20 per month. Gustav damaged 100,000 homes on Cuba.

Comment: leaving aside the long term issue of ending the embargo, Rice is non-responsive to the push to suspend restrictions for at least Cuban Americans for 90 days so they can provide direct assistance to family members.

Cuba Responds to US Offer

2008-09-07T05:09:00.000-07:00

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

On 3rd September last, at 4:45 P.M., the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Thomas Shannon, delivered to the Head of the Interest Section of Cuba in Washington, Note Nº 646, which states “its deepest regret for the destruction caused by hurricane Gustav” and affirms that the United States would be prepared to “offer immediate and initial humanitarian assistance of relief supplies to the Cuban people through an appropriate international relief organization”.

An identical Note was later sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the United States Interests Section in Havana.

In said Note, the U.S. Government also requests the Cuban Government to “allow a United States humanitarian assessment team to visit Cuba to inspect the affected areas to properly assess damage”.

On Saturday 6 September, at 8:55 A.M., the Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered to the State Department, through the Interests Section of Cuba in Washington, and simultaneously to the United States Interests Section in Havana, its Note Nº 1866 conveying its appreciation for the expressions of regret by the Government of the United States due to the destruction caused in our country by hurricane Gustav.

The Note also states that Cuba does not require the assistance of a humanitarian assessment team to assess the damage and needs, as it has a sufficient number of specialists, which practically have concluded that task.

The Note of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also expresses that if the Government of the United States is really willing to cooperate with the Cuban people in face of the tragedy of the hurricane, it is requested to allow the sale to Cuba of those materials considered indispensable and to suspend the restrictions that prevent U.S. companies from offering private commercial credits to our country for the purchase of food in the United States.

A widespread public debate has emerged during the last few hours in the United States regarding the position that should be adopted by the U.S. Government due to of the severe damage caused by hurricane Gustav in Cuba.

During the afternoon of 4 September, the Democratic Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama, requested the suspension, for no less than 90 days, of restrictions to travel, remittances and assistance by Cuban residents in the United States to their families in Cuba.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers that the restrictions to travel and send remittances by persons of Cuban origin residing in the United States should have never been applied. It is not Cuba but the United States who deprives persons of Cuban origin from the exercise of this right.

If these rights were to be returned to the Cubans as a result of humanitarian reasons, there would be no way to explain that said prohibition, equally unjust and discriminatory, would be retained for U.S. citizens.

Now, when the Eastern part of the country is already in hurricane watch as a result of the threat posed by hurricane Ike, as powerful as Gustav, Cuba reaffirms that, in all truth, the only correct and ethical action, in correspondence with International Law and the practically unanimous will of the U.N. General Assembly, would be to eliminate totally and permanently the ruthless and cruel economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed against our Motherland for almost half a century. It includes the persecution of Cuban commercial and financial operations in third countries and which, according to conservative calculations, causes yearly damages higher than those caused by hurricane Gustav.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba

September 6 2008

State Department Rejects Appeals to Loosen Restrictions

2008-09-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

Taken Question
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
September 5, 2008
Question Taken at September 5, 2008 Daily Press Briefing

Call to Temporarily Loosen Restrictions on Cuba (Taken Question)

Question: What is your reaction to the call to temporarily loosen restrictions on travel and sending money to Cuba in the wake of Hurricane Gustav?

Answer: We have been heartened by the outpouring of compassion for hurricane victims in Cuba. The U.S. Government has offered humanitarian aid to the Cuban people that would be distributed through in-country non-governmental organizations.

In fact, there is sufficient flexibility under existing regulations to permit humanitarian organizations or individuals licensed to send money and other assistance to Cuba to significantly increase such assistance in support of Hurricane Gustav relief efforts. The State Department has been coordinating closely with the Treasury Department and the Commerce Department to facilitate humanitarian relief directed to hurricane victims in Cuba.

We do not believe that at this time it is necessary to loosen the restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba to accomplish the objective of aiding the hurricane victims. Non-governmental organizations on the ground in Cuba are already mobilizing to provide such assistance.

2008/694

Released on September 5, 2008

Comment:

We are looking for independent confirmation of the State Department's claim, including whether these are organizations authorized to work in Cuba. Regrettably past practice has compromised the role of US NGOs which have taken government funding linked to intrusive regime change agendas.

Both NGOs and individual Cuban Americans would benefit from suspension of restrictions on providing humanitarian aid through mutually acceptable partners and direct assistance to family members.

Appeal for Assistance and Transmitting Organizations

2008-09-05T18:55:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Gustav: ACT NOW

Sep 5, 2008

Dear Friends,

Hurricane Gustav has inflicted grievous damage on Cuba, including the destruction of 100,000 homes and crops worth millions of dollars. It is Cuba's worst hurricane in 50 years.

Like you, our hearts ache for the Cubans who are dealing with this tragedy. We are writing this special appeal now to ask you to join our organizations and other Americans who want to help the Cuban people by sending charitable aid for recovery from this terrible storm.

While Cuba was broadly battered by Hurricane Gustav, the Isle of Youth and the province of Pinar Del Rio bore the brunt of the devastation. No human lives were taken, but Cubans have lost their homes, food, schools, and livelihoods. Pinar Del Rio, a region of stunning natural beauty, has been wrecked by the storm's ferocious winds and rain. Gustav delivered a cruel, devastating blow.

Other countries are doing their part. Russian planes have already landed in Cuba providing its first significant assistance since the fall of the Berlin Wall. A plane sent by the Spanish Government carrying 15 tons of supplies will land in the next day or two. Venezuela, China, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico have also offered aid. Now it is time for our country to do its part.

Years of antagonism between United States and Cuba mean that traditional offers of assistance, government to government, will neither be made nor accepted. But there are steps that can be taken - right away - that would help the people of Cuba at this moment of great need.

First, we have identified 6 organizations operating here in the U.S. which can legally accept contributions from U.S. citizens that can, in turn, send aid to Cuba. We strongly urge everyone who can donate money to do so through any of these groups. We are asking that checks be written to the organization(s) you choose and then mailed to one place so that we can keep track of the money we have collectively raised and report back to all of you. We will immediately send your checks on to the organizations you have identified. Please write checks to one of the organizations listed below and then mail checks to: Cuba Hurricane Relief, P.O. Box 53106, Washington, DC 20009. (Note: you can also donate online directly to any of these organizations, or through the Cuba Central site at http://democracyinamericas.org/donate/)

Second, please join us in asking U.S. policy makers to free Cuban-Americans from restrictions that prevent them from providing aid to their own suffering families on Cuba. Until this tragedy is resolved, there should be no restrictions on their ability to send money and relief packages, or to travel and offer a helping hand, to family members in need. Cuban dissidents such as Martha Beatriz Roque and Vladimiro Roca have asked President Bush to do this, and he should respond positively to their pleas - and ours. You can reach your Representative by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-225-3121.

This is both the hurricane season and the political season, but humanity should trump politics, especially now. Please join us in providing charitable assistance to the Cuban people and the opportunity for Cuban-Americans to help their families. It is the right thing to do, and the right time to do it.

Sincerely,

Cuba Central and Center for Democracy in the Americas
Center for International Policy
Fund for Reconciliation and Development

1. Global Links

Global Links' program of medical aid to Cuba began in 1994 at the request of The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO). This program is a federally licensed humanitarian aid program. Aid sent is received and distributed to health institutions by the PAHO/WHO office in Havana and the Cuban Ministry of Health. Global Links has received a list of requested products from PAHO and is raising funds to purchase and send them to Cuba. (http://www.globallinks.org/where_we_work/cuba/)

2. Operation USA

Since its inception in September 1998, CMAP has delivered major shipments to pediatric hospitals and other health facilities. Supplies are donated by private companies, hospitals and physicians and are sent to Cuba under license from the U.S.-Departments of Commerce and Treasury. Operation USA is accepting cash contributions to pay for shipping medical supplies to Cuba. (http://www.opusa.org/wherewework/international/cuba/mainpage.html)

3. MEDICC

MEDICC-Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba, is a non-profit organization working to enhance cooperation among the US, Cuban and global health communities aimed at better health outcomes. MEDICC supports education and development of human resources in health committed to equitable access and quality care, providing the Cuban experience to inform global debate, practice, policies and cooperation in health. MEDICC is seeking financial donations to replenish stocks of key medical reference books lost at the badly damaged Isle of Youth Medical School, where over 2,000 young Cubans study medicine and public health. (http://www.medicc.org/ns/index.php?s=3&p=3)

4. Catholic Relief Services

Catholic Relief Services has worked with Caritas Cubana, the Catholic Church's relief agency, to provide emergency, humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable and needy people in Cuba since 1993. CRS delivers medicine, medical supplies, food and clothing to Cuba for distribution in hospitals, homes for the elderly, and to children with Down syndrome and other vulnerable groups. CRS is working with Caritas Cubana in the affected areas in infrastructure projects and assistance with access to food, hygiene products and water. (http://crs.org/Cuba/)

5. Jewish Solidarity

Since 1993, Jewish Solidarity has delivered over 35 tons of medicine, food and other supplies to Cuba's more than 1500 Jews in Havana and throughout this island nation. They have a humanitarian license that allows them to collect financial donations to then buy the necessary items that are most needed in Cuba. Jewish Solidarity is accepting financial donations to buy medicine, food and other supplies to be distributed in Cuba.

6. Daughters of Charity

The Daughters of Charity, a non-profit organization based in Miami, Florida, that has been sending humanitarian goods to Cuba since 1994. You can send a check donation so they can buy needed food items and pay the cost of the containers they will be sending to Cuba.

All donations are tax deductible. Please include your name, address and phone number on any mailed donations in order to receive a donation confirmation letter.

Please mail checks to: Cuba Hurricane Relief, P.O. Box 53106, Washington, DC 20009.

Cuba storm aid plan fuels debate

2008-09-05T07:50:00.000-07:00

Cuba storm aid plan fuels debate

By Alexia Campbell | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

September 5, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama's call for the United States to temporarily lift restrictions on family travel and aid to Cuba in the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav has rekindled a decades-old debate dividing South Florida's Cuban exile community.

While they may want to help their families back home, many defend the U.S. embargo enacted in response to Fidel Castro's adoption of a one-party Communist government in Cuba. Some South Florida Cubans like the idea of making it easier to send aid to their homeland. But many have mixed emotions about the best way to do it.

"Unfortunately, I think it's naive for [Obama] to think that the Cuban government will just open up," said Hollywood resident Peter Hernandez, 46, who still has no news from his cousins living in Pinar del Rio, a province hit hard by the hurricane's Category 4 winds.

The Cuban government is still gauging the extent of the storm's impact, but it says as many as 100,000 home were damaged.

Hernandez says sometimes he feels powerless that he can't do much to help. He left Cuba when he was 9 and supports the U.S. embargo but said he would back lifting it temporarily if there was a way to ensure money and food would go directly to hurricane victims.

The United States enacted the trade and travel restrictions in 1960. Current U.S. law limits exile visits to the country to once every three years, and prohibits sending more than $300 to relatives every three months.

The Cuban American National Foundation, a longtime advocate of a U.S. embargo, sent a letter to President Bush asking him to temporarily lift those restrictions, said Camila Gallardo, the group's director of government relations.

Obama said in a news release Wednesday that the temporary easing of the regulations, for at least 90 days, does not mean that the embargo should be dissolved.

"This is a time when the Cuban people — not Castro — need and deserve American compassion and assistance," Obama said.

Wilton Manors resident Reinol Piedra agrees. The Florida Atlantic University student wishes he had the choice to send supplies to his great aunt, whose house in Pinar del Rio was destroyed by the storm. "When it comes to humanitarian help, we should leave behind our opinions and biases," said Piedra, 41, who left Cuba in 1967.

Silvia Wilhelm, of the Cuban American Commission for Family Rights, which advocates unrestricted family travel to the island, says people shouldn't wait until the restrictions are lifted to help displaced Cubans.

"We need to get people motivated to help now," said Wilhelm.

Alexia Campbell can be reached at apcampbell@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4513.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbcubaaid0905sbsep05,0,7369061.story

U.S. Offers Storm Aid to Cuba Only Through Relief Groups

2008-09-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

U.S. Offers Storm Aid to Cuba Only Through Relief Groups

By MARC LACEY

New York Times, September 5, 2008

MEXICO CITY — The United States State Department said Thursday that it had offered humanitarian aid to Cuban victims of Hurricane Gustav, provided that it went through relief organizations and not the government of President Raúl Castro.

“The U.S. government informed the Cuban government that we’re prepared to offer hurricane assistance to the Cuban citizens,” said Heide Bronke, a State Department spokeswoman. “We’ve made the offer, but we haven’t heard from them yet.”

All six Cuban-American members of Congress have called this week for the Bush administration to aid victims of the storm, which tore through the western province of Pinar del Río and the Isle of Youth over the weekend, causing what the Cuban government estimates to be billions of dollars in damage.

The offer from the United States, which was made Wednesday through the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, calls for an initial $100,000 in emergency aid. The State Department also offered to send disaster experts from the United States Agency for International Development to Cuba to assess damage. Initial estimates by the United States put the number of Cubans affected by the storm at 500,000.

Whether Cuba would accept such assistance from Washington remains to be seen. The countries have a long history of animosity when it comes to disaster aid.

Cuba’s former ruler, Fidel Castro, wrote in a newspaper commentary on Wednesday that the storm hit Cuba like a “nuclear blast” and that the damage reminded him of what he saw when he visited Hiroshima, Japan, after World War II.

The hurricane’s wind speeds exceeded 150 miles per hour, and more than 100,000 homes were leveled in Cuba. There were mandatory evacuations of the affected areas, however, and not a single death was reported. Haiti was also hit hard by the storm; the death toll there exceeds 100.

“Now the battle is to feed the victims,” Mr. Castro wrote, estimating that it would take $3 billion to $4 billion to finance basic recovery efforts.

Russia sent two cargo planes to Cuba on Thursday, and state television showed workers unloading tents and construction materials at the airport in Havana, Reuters reported. Cuban state media have said that Venezuela and China, two close allies, have offered aid, as have Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

In 2004, Cuba rejected an American offer of $50,000 in aid after Hurricane Charley, calling the amount humiliating and the offer “cynical and hypocritical.”

Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said then that the American trade embargo of nearly half a century made it clear that the aid offer was not genuine. “Cuba will not accept supposed help from the government of a country that harms us and tries to take us under with hunger and need,” the ministry said in a statement four years ago.

In 2005, Cuba offered to send doctors to the United States to help treat victims of Hurricane Katrina. The White House declined the offer.

In 1996, Cuba agreed to accept tons of rice, milk and beans from the United States after Hurricane Lili, but it later turned down part of a planeload of the aid because some packages contained slogans that the government considered “suggestive, provocative and counter-revolutionary.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/world/americas/05cuba.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

Cuban government opponents urge aid loosening

2008-09-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

Cuban dissidents ask looser US embargo after storm

By WILL WEISSERT – 49 minutes ago

HAVANA (AP) Two prominent Cuban dissidents have asked U.S. President George W. Bush to temporarily loosen restrictions on travel and sending money to the communist-run island to help tens of thousands left homeless by Hurricane Gustav.

Marta Beatriz Roque and Vladimiro Roca signed a Spanish-language letter to Bush which they delivered to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana on Wednesday. Officials at the mission, which Washington maintains here instead of an embassy, said they passed it along to the White House.

The letter, sent by fax to foreign reporters on Thursday, asks Bush to lift restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba by Cuban exiles in the United States "for at least two months."

"You know as well as we do that any family member abroad would like to have physical contact with those who are going through a difficult situation," they wrote.

Gustav slammed into western Cuba with 140 mph (220 kph) winds on Saturday, ripping roofs off homes, leveling buildings, tossing trees, cars and power lines and crumpling electric towers.

About 100,000 homes nationwide were damaged, thousands beyond repair, and Fidel Castro suggested recovery could cost billions of dollars.

"Knowing how intransigent the Cuban government is about accepting help from your country ... we ask that you permit American non-governmental organizations to help the region so as to soothe the suffering of its inhabitants," the dissidents wrote.

Past hurricanes have served to soften the U.S. embargo, if indirectly.

In 2000, the U.S. Congress authorized direct sales of American food and farm products to the island. The communist government refused to import even one grain of rice for more than a year because of a dispute over financing, but finally agreed to take advantage of the law after Hurricane Michelle in November 2001 cut into its food stocks.

Today the United States is the island's leading supplier of food.

Raul Castro, who succeeded his brother Fidel as president six months ago, has not asked for international aid, though Russian planes carrying tents, building materials and food landed in Cuba on Thursday.

Roque is a former government official who was among 75 political activists sentenced to prison in 2003 on charges of conspiring with U.S. officials to undermine Cuba's communist system. She was subsequently conditionally released for medical reasons.

Roca is a former fighter pilot and son of a legendary communist leader who served nearly five years in prison for his political beliefs.

Hurricane Guxtav Impact

2008-09-05T05:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Hurricane Gustav Impact on Cuba

UPDATE 1-Cuba says Gustav damaged more than 90,000 houses

By Jeff Franks

HAVANA, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Cuba said on Monday more than 90,000 houses were damaged or destroyed when Hurricane Gustav tore through the western province of Pinar del Rio on Saturday with 150-mile-per-hour (240-kph) winds.

Officials and state media said 80 percent of the province, which has about 750,000 residents, was without power after Gustav knocked down 80 high-tension towers with cables that distribute electricity throughout the region.

State-run news agency AIN, in a story quoting Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, said 53 percent of the homes in the hardest-hit areas were affected, most suffering roof damage.

No deaths have been reported from the storm, which passed into the Gulf of Mexico after crossing Cuba and on Monday struck Louisiana, near New Orleans, on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Power lines were knocked down throughout the stricken area in Cuba, many of them draped across roads and highways.

The tall, metal towers supporting the main electricity cables could be seen lying crumpled across the palm-studded landscape.

On state television, Lage said during a trip to the worst-hit Pinar del Rio towns that power supply was a "very grave and urgent problem."

"It doesn't have to do with repairing a few towers, it has to do with constructing a new electricity network, because much of the network is on the ground," he said.

But Lage said electricity should be restored more quickly than in past storms because of diesel generators installed around the country in recent years.

He also said electricity workers from around Cuba had been brought in to speed repair of the system.

An official for the state electric company said on state television that power had been completely knocked out on the Isle of Youth and would take some time to restore.

AIN quoted the local electricity director on the island, which is about 40 miles (64 km) off Cuba's southwestern coast and took a direct hit from Gustav, as saying 120 miles (200 km) of power lines had been downed.

Television reports showed widespread devastation on the island, which has about 86,000 residents. A report on national radio said more than 40 percent of the housing had been damaged and the main hospital was closed.

The top official of the ruling Communist Party in Pinar del Rio, the main growing region for Cuba's famed tobacco, said more than 4 million pounds (1.8 million kg) of the leaf, already harvested and in warehouses, had been damaged by Gustav, but that efforts were being made to salvage them.

Cuba produces about 80 million pounds (36 million kg) of tobacco annually.

AIN also reported heavy damage to hotels and thousands of buildings in Pinar del Rio's Vinales valley, a popular international tourist destination known for its dramatic rocky outcrops and traditional architecture.

In Havana, which did not bear the full brunt of the storm but where many older buildings are in poor condition, officials said 50 houses had partially collapsed and six had fallen. (Editing by Michael Christie and Peter Cooney)
AP Video of destruction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijG5rvEj228