"Cuba sends aid to Haiti". Hmm...I must have missed the headlines in
US papers, or on the evening TV news.
And by the way, what ever became of all the aid we pledged to send to
Haiti after the destructive earthquake.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/16/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2016/8040/804001.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 40 October 24, 2016
(lead article)
Cuba’s response to hurricane — the difference a revolution makes
Above, UN Photo/Logan Abassi; inset, Estudios Revolución
Above, residents of Les Cayes, Haiti, Oct. 6. Haitian government, like
U.S. gov’t, left people on their own as hurricane approached. More than
1,000 died. Left, Raúl Castro being greeted in storm-ravaged town of
Maisí, Cuba, Oct. 10. Revolutionary leadership organized evacuation of a
million people before storm’s landfall, and led immediate work to
rebuild. Not one person died.
BY SETH GALINSKY
What difference does a living revolution with the working class in power
make in real life? Just look at the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew,
which ravaged parts of Haiti and eastern Cuba before causing major
flooding in Florida, the Carolinas and Georgia.
There are more than 1,000 dead and still counting in Haiti, a capitalist
country dominated by U.S. imperialism. In revolutionary Cuba, while
thousands of homes and acres of forests and crops were destroyed, there
was not one single fatality. In the United States, at least 23 people
are dead as of Oct. 10.
In the midst of its own challenges in repairing the storm’s destruction,
Cuba sent reinforcements to Haiti to join its medical mission there to
combat cholera and other diseases in the wake of the storm.
Matthew hit both Haiti and Guantánamo province in Cuba Oct. 4 as a
Category 4 hurricane. In the costal town of Baracoa, “the waves reached
the second floor,” one resident told Juventud Rebelde. Some 90 percent
of homes were damaged in that town of 60,000.
The Cuban leadership started organizing well before the hurricane made
landfall.
On Oct. 2, President Raúl Castro began a several-day tour of Guantánamo.
He participated in a meeting of the Provincial Civil Defense Council,
which oversees disaster preparedness, “focused on protecting the
population and minimizing economic losses.” Castro and the council set
up camp in nearby Santiago.
According to Juventud Rebelde, the Civil Defense, working together with
local government and army personnel, evacuated more than 1 million
residents. Some 372,885 people were placed in shelters and another
944,886 moved in with family, friends and neighbors.
Reconstruction begins immediately
Brigades of electrical workers and soldiers armed with buzz saws were
sent to the region before the hurricane hit — anticipating that roads
and bridges would be washed out — to make sure repairs could begin
immediately.
“We’re here to help the recovery,” utility worker Ismael Infante, who
came from neighboring Tunas province before the storm, told EFE news
service.
Repair and recovery work began as soon as the winds died down. It looked
like a sea of olive green, wrote a Juventud Rebelde reporter arriving in
Baracoa Oct. 8 by helicopter. He referred to the hundreds of soldiers
mixed in with town residents who were working to clean up roads and get
reconstruction going.
“The most important thing is that there was not a single death,” Castro
told a crowd of hundreds when he toured Baracoa that day.
The government announced Oct. 8 that supplies to rebuild homes would be
sold at half price and that low- or no-interest, long-term loans were
available to anyone who needed them. Those most in need will be given
the materials free of charge.
Mass organizations, including Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution and the Union of Young Communists are organizing volunteers
such as carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers and anyone who wants to travel
to the most affected areas to work side by side with residents to
rebuild their homes.
“It won’t be quick, but we are going to recover,” Noel Mosqueda,
president of the Municipal Defense Council in Maisí, told Juventud Rebelde.
In U.S., Haiti ‘You’re on your own’
Unlike Cuba, the governments in both Haiti and the United States took
the approach of “every man for himself.”
As the storm approached Florida’s east coast Oct. 6, Gov. Rick Scott
announced, “You need to leave. Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate.” The
governors of South Carolina and North Carolina made similar statements.
While some buses were organized to evacuate people, most were left to
fend for themselves. USA Today reported Oct. 6 that those who tried to
flee in Florida “faced clogged roads, dwindling fuel supplies and
sold-out hotel rooms.” Despite the clogged roads and gas shortages,
Mayor Eddie DeLoach in Savannah, Georgia, warned anyone who decided to
ride out the storm, “Do not expect us to be there to help you.”
The latest destruction in Haiti adds to the devastation from the 2010
earthquake and subsequent cholera epidemic that left more than 300,000
dead.
The government took almost no measures to evacuate or get people to
shelters before the storm. According to the aid group Mercy Corps, more
than 80 percent of the crops that feed 20,000 families were destroyed in
the hard-hit southern part of the island.
Farmers near St. Louis-du-Sud told Reuters that the area’s wooden boats,
used to catch fish and shrimp, were destroyed. Little aid is arriving
from around the world. Along with looming food shortages from the
destruction of crops, livestock and farm and fishing implements — no
small matter in Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the world — is the
danger of a new rise in cholera.
Reuters reports that at the Port-a-Piment hospital alone, the number of
cholera cases jumped from 13 before the hurricane to nearly 60 on Oct.
9. “We have been abandoned by a government that never thinks of us,”
said Marie-Ange Henry in the village of Chevalier.
On Oct. 8, 38 doctors, nurses and specialists in control of epidemics
flew from Cuba to Haiti to strengthen the efforts of 648 Cuban
internationalist medical volunteers already stationed there. Cuban
volunteers played a key role in controlling the cholera epidemic after
the 2010 quake.
“We are going to Haiti with the same combativity with which our
co-workers are working in the eastern provinces affected by the
hurricane, as an example that we share what we have,” said Alexis Diaz
Ortega, head of the brigade.
“Ever since we were little we wanted to be like Che [Guevara],” Dr.
Nevis González told Prensa Latina. “In this mission we will be a worthy
example of that,” by saving thousands of lives.
Related articles:
Cuba is example for workers worldwide
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