05 Sep 2008 19:07
By Rosa Tania Valdes
HAVANA, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Spain shipped in 16 tonnes of humanitarian
aid to Cuba on Friday, while tiny East Timor donated $500,000 and China
anted up $300,000 as international help flowed into the island working
to recover from devastating Hurricane Gustav.
Venezuela, Cuba's closest ally, said it would help as did Colombia and
Mexico, while arch-foe the United States offered $100,000 in emergency
funds on the condition it go through relief groups, not the Cuban
government.
The United Nations, which sent in an adviser to conduct a joint damage
assessment with the government, also said it had offered aid.
Russia, Cuba's former Cold War ally, flew in two planeloads of goods on
Thursday, and said two more were coming.
The storm wrecked an estimated 100,000 houses and, according to former
leader Fidel Castro, caused several billion dollars of damage when it
struck western Cuba and the Isle of Youth on Saturday.
Gustav's 150-mile-per-hour (240-km-per-hour) winds ripped off roofs,
knocked over power lines and flattened crops and trees as it crossed the
island on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. It later struck Louisiana.
No deaths have been reported in Cuba, despite the extensive damage that
Castro, in a commentary on Wednesday, equated to a nuclear bomb. He said
scenes from the hardest-hit areas recalled Hiroshima, the Japanese city
hit by a U.S. atomic bomb at the end of World War Two.
Castro, ailing and 82, was formally replaced as president in February by
brother Raul Castro, but writes frequent newspaper columns and appears
to still play a role in the government he led after taking power in a
1959 revolution.
Spain said its aid included electric generators, tents and personal
hygiene articles. Russia brought tents, electric cables, sleeping cots
and blankets.
East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta announced his country's $500,000
donation during an official visit to Cuba.
John Holmes, the UN's humanitarian affairs chief, said in New York the
international body was "looking at the possibility" of providing aid to
Cuba from its emergency response funds.
If Cuba accepts, "I think it would be the first time they have been
willing to take such assistance from us," he said.
The United States has offered emergency funds to Cuba before, but Cuba
has turned it down.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, Fidel Castro
offered to send Cuban doctors in to help storm victims, but Washington
did not accept.
The United States has maintained a trade embargo against Cuba for 46
years and the two countries, just 90 miles (144 km) part, do not have
diplomatic relations. (Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip in New
York; editing by Jeff Franks and Eric Walsh) Keywords: STORM GUSTAV/CUBA
http://about.reuters.com/dynamic/countrypages/mexico/1220656040nN05215040.ASP
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