Posted on Sun, Sep. 14, 2008
BY MYRIAM MARQUEZ
mmarquez@MiamiHerald.com
More than a half-million homes destroyed. Three-hundred bridges
collapsed. Six-hundred municipal water wells wiped out. Almost a third
of Cuba's population without electricity.
Bananas, sugar, yams, vast fields of food -- all gone.
After getting battered from one end of the island to the other by
back-to-back hurricanes, Cubans are crying out for help. The risk of
water-borne diseases, bacterial outbreaks, viruses and malnutrition is
mounting.
But their leaders and ours keep going in circles, sizing up one another
to see how they can gain the political advantage out of hurricanes
estimated to have done billions of dollars in damage.
And there the Cuban people are: hungry, tired, yearning to be free --
propelled into the eye of this latest political storm.
The U.S. government quickly approved $10 million in aid to Haiti and
sent planeloads of supplies as one million were left homeless there from
recent hurricanes. And more U.S. aid is coming.
A DANGLED CARROT
But for communist Cuba the Bush administration offered a paltry $100,000
quick hit, dangling the carrot of millions of dollars in aid if a U.S.
emergency relief team were allowed into Cuba to assess the damage.
Cuba's response was to call for the end to the decades-old U.S. embargo.
No surprise there. Cuba can't get credit lines from U.S. companies under
current law, so the regime has to pay in cash for those goods. Good
thing, too, because Cuba is infamously bad about paying its debts. Ask
Russia, Japan, Canada, Italy and on and on.
For decades, Cuba has mismanaged its economy and conveniently blamed the
U.S. embargo. Make no mistake: The crumbling buildings wiped out during
Gustav and Ike were a product of 50 years of the Castro brothers'
neglect, exacerbated by wind and water.
So that's the lousy history, and we all know it. The question is: Why do
we keep repeating it?
Because while the two governments are pointing fingers and the exile
community keeps arguing over who's right on how to end the dictatorship,
millions of desperate people are being held hostage to hunger and
homelessness.
Cuba's foreign ministry pooh-poohed the U.S. aid offer as one more
example that the U.S. government ``behaves cynically. . . . They lie
unscrupulously.''
BITTER, NASTY RELATIONS
Well, yes, tit for tat. Apparently Cuban officials are fretting that
American emergency aid experts would be checking out the Cuban
countryside. What are they hiding? Old Soviet missiles unearthed by the
storms?
It's not unusual for governments helping others to send assessment teams.
But there's nothing usual about U.S.-Cuba relations. It's bitter and
nasty, and the Castros thrive on it.
So let's call the regime's bluff.
Already religious charities are scrambling to assemble shipments for
Cuba and Haiti. They know from past assistance efforts that Cuba's
militant regime has the structure -- beginning with those spying block
committees -- to get basic aid, food and medicine to the masses quickly.
What's another option? Starve the Cubans until they somehow, after five
decades of revolutionary propaganda, rise up and free themselves using
scraps of lumber and metal from their demolished homes as their weapons?
Think U.S. national security. If this war of words escalates and aid to
Cuba from other countries likely falls short, we can expect another
rafter crisis.
And once again, the Castro brothers will have released the escape valve
and saved themselves.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/685619.html
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