[Marxism] NYT: U.S. Offers Storm Aid to Cuba Only Through Relief Groups

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The NY Times reports that the State Department has offered $100,000 to
Cuba. According to the US Interests Section in Havana 500,000 Cubans
have been impacted by hurricane Gustav. Thus, the United States
government is offering $0.20 per person affected.

On July 26, 2005 Fidel Castro stated,

"While the US administration, which so furiously imposes the
genocidal blockade on our country, in an entirely hypocritical and
shameless way "compassionately" offered Cuba 50,000 USD to alleviate
the damage caused by the hurricane, the lawmakers who support the
Bush government policies, introduced a bill in Congress that would
allocate 37,931,000 USD for the fiscal year 2006 and 29,931,000 USD
for the fiscal year 2007, for anti-Cuban broadcasts. According to the
wording, the purpose of the bill is "to buy, rent, build and improve
radio and television reception and transmission facilities and to
buy, rent and install the necessary equipment, including aircraft,
for radio and television reception and transmission".

The Cubans do not need a US government handout, what they need is to
be able to have the blockade ended.

Nelson Valdes
========================================================================


THE NEW YORK TIMES
September 5, 2008
U.S. Offers Storm Aid to Cuba Only Through Relief Groups
By MARC LACEY

MEXICO CITY â 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 RaÃl Castro.

âThe U.S. government informed the Cuban government that weâre prepared to 
offer 
hurricane assistance to the Cuban citizens,â said Heide Bronke, a State 
Department
spokeswoman. âWeâve made the offer, but we havenât heard from them yet.â

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
RÃo 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.

Cubaâs former ruler, Fidel Castro, wrote in a newspaper commentary on 
Wednesday 
that the storm hit Cuba like a ânuclear blastâ and that the damage reminded 
him 
of what he saw when he visited Hiroshima, Japan, after World War II.

The hurricaneâs wind speeds exceeded 200 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.

âNow the battle is to feed the victims,â 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 âcynical and hypocritical.â

Cubaâs Foreign Ministry said then that the American trade embargo of nearly 
half
a century made it clear that the aid offer was not genuine. âCuba will not 
accept
supposed help from the government of a country that harms us and tries to take 
us
under with hunger and need,â 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 âsuggestive, 
provocative
and counter-revolutionary.â



Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company


=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un ParaÃso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================

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