Between 30 August and 7 September, two Category 4 hurricanes passed through Cuba, wreaking destruction on a mass scale. More than 300,000 homes were damaged, the country’s electricity grid was plunged into chaos and thousands of hectares of crops were destroyed, at a cost of around $5bn. Cuba’s development plans have been set back, but through all the turmoil, Cuba’s organised response shows how socialism is capable of defending human life. LOUIS BREHONY reports.
Hurricane Gustav
Gustav struck Cuba on the afternoon of 30 August. 60,000 people had been evacuated the previous night. Gustav’s 150mph winds damaged or destroyed 90,000 homes and knocked down 80 electricity pylons in Pinar del Rio alone. On the Isle of Youth, the entire electricity grid was brought down. In Cuba no one lost their life to Gustav, but there were 138 deaths in other countries across the Caribbean and the US.
Hurricane Ike
A week later, Hurricane Ike hit. 2.6 million people were relocated, a quarter of Cuba’s population. The heavy rainfall led the Cuyaguateje River to burst its banks, leaving whole towns in western Pinar del Rio cut off.
Seven people were killed as a result of Ike. In the past decade 22 Cubans have been killed by hurricanes. In neighbouring Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, more than 550 people have been killed this hurricane season alone and one million people made homeless.
In the US, the world’s richest country, up to 65 people died when Ike hit. Despite the lessons learned from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when 1,800 people died, and despite warnings from national weather forecasters that residents of coastal Texas faced ‘certain death’ if they refused to evacuate, hundreds of thousands were unable or unwilling to move. Although some buses were laid on for the elderly or disabled or those lacking their own transport, most residents were left to fend for themselves. Severe petrol shortages made this impossible for many; others found themselves in bumper-to-bumper traffic jams stretching from Houston to northern Texas. When people did reach help, emergency centres were grossly under-resourced. In Galveston, the area worst hit by Ike, 40% of the population did not evacuate. As Newsweek reported (19 September 2008), many were too elderly or infirm to withstand evacuation or too poor to organise it – with no car, no relatives to stay with, no money for a hotel and unable to take extra days off work. Newsweek pointed too to a basic mistrust of the authorities after experiences of other hurricanes – the botched evacuation for Hurricane Rita in 2005 killed ten times more people than the hurricane itself – and the fear that, as happened after Katrina, if they left they might never be allowed to come back.
Cuba: socialism saves lives
In 2005 Cuba was recognised by the UN’s World Disaster Conference as ‘a model for hurricane management in developing countries’. The conference highlighted strong commitment by public authorities, public awareness enshrined in the education system from primary school up to university level and the involvement of the whole population so that ‘potentially vulnerable populations play an indispensable role in saving other lives and their own’.
This system is overseen by the assemblies of people’s power and the revolutionary armed forces. Each house receives an evacuation plan long in advance, and public evacuation drills are held regularly. Evacuations are ordered 48 hours before storms hit. Schools are immediately turned into shelters, with a doctor in each. Volunteers make sure there are enough blankets, water and food. Hospitals, water pumps and other key services have their own power sources so they can carry on when the grid goes down. This is how socialism protects its people.
Rebuilding despite the blockade
Cuba has a lot of rebuilding to do. 300,000 homes have been affected. Reconstruction work has started on thousands of homes across the island but is hampered by lack of resources. The US government has refused to lift the blockade (see letter from Teresita Trujillo).
Meanwhile, help has been flowing in from Cuba’s allies, including Brazil, Russia, China and Venezuela. $1 million was donated by Trinidad and Tobago, whose ambassador described
Cuba as an ‘example to the rest of the Caribbean’.
POLITICAL SOLIDARITY PRIORITY FOR CUBA
FRFI asked Teresita Trujillo, from the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, how people in Britain can best support Cuba in its reconstruction efforts. We reprint an edited version of her reply.
‘At this point our main priority from friends is political. The US administration is using the situation to mount another campaign against the Revolution. Their offer of humanitarian assistance is conditional on sending a mission to assess the damage. They are presenting the situation as if they were desperate to help and the Cuban authorities are refusing their assistance, while they say nothing about the blockade or about our request to get authorisation (even on temporary basis) to purchase construction materials from the US. Anti-Cuban organisations in the US, such as the Cuban-American National Foundation, are requesting an increase in the amount of money they can send their ‘partners’ in Cuba, and are manipulating the US media to present a picture of the situation that suits their interests.
The US authorities say that the Revolution is incapable of resolving the problems created by the hurricanes and that we are refusing their assessment mission because it will reveal that it was the inefficiency of the system that caused the damage to be so huge.
This is the time for the international community to put pressure on the US administration to end the blockade and to counter the distortions spread by the US. The recovery is going on quite quickly, but obviously part of the damage will have a long-term effect.’
To avoid bank transaction charges, send donations to Rock around the Blockade at BM RATB, London WC1N 3XX and we will forward them to the official Hurricane Damage Restoration account in Cuba. Cheques payable to Rock around the Blockade and marked ‘Hurricane Appeal’
FRFI 205 October / November 2008
