After the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, serious accusations have been made about the ability of the US to cope with major incidents of this nature. Then along came Hurricane Rita, with its spectacle of camper vans and 4X4 vehicles carrying one or two passengers each, running out of petrol in 100-mile traffic jams, providing a variant horror story, equally telling against the US way of coping with disaster.
Katrina exposed a failure to plan for or provide evacuation contingency arrangements and defences, a lack of coordination between city, state and federal government levels, and corruption in the appointment of those responsible for emergency management. Further criticisms focus on privatisation of the relief effort and the way that the US treats its poor, violating the dignity of both the living and the dead.
Meanwhile, the military machine is unavailable to help because it is busy trying to occupy a poor nation upon which the US government is failing to impose its system. Add to this the fact that it took nearly two weeks for Bush, the Commander in Chief, to visit New Orleans, the worst affected area. Bush has sacked his pal Michael Brown, Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a useful scapegoat, whilst promising to head up an investigation, effectively investigating himself.
Lucky that Rita was not so deadly, and of course Bush was at pains to show that he and his government were prepared. But the totally inadequate defences of New Orleans were once again breached, recovery efforts there brought to nought, displaced people now in utter despair.
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Hurricanes are not unusual events. There is an annual hurricane season familiar to all Caribbean and Gulf nations. There is advance warning, monitoring and tracking of tropical storms and hurricanes. It is well known that they can do immense damage and that they cannot be controlled. This year it is also well known that the season has started earlier and that the waters of the Caribbean are one or two degrees warmer than usual, potentially causing the tropical storms and hurricanes to carry more water and become more damaging. So how do others in the region cope with hurricanes? We know that Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua have all suffered massive loss of life over the years due to hurricanes. But one island often in the eye of the storm seems to escape with damage but rarely with fatalities.
Cuba has, over many years, built up a highly planned and effective method for coping with hurricanes. The essence is advanced planning, pre-planned evacuation and involvement of the whole community. Potential storms are monitored well in advance and their movement and growth constantly reviewed. Unlike in the US, the commander in chief takes personal control and responsibility because it is treated as a military operation in which the entire population is mobilised. In the event of a potentially dangerous storm or hurricane approaching, plans are taken off the shelf and activated, the whole community is involved in the planning debate through television and everyone knows what to do. Civil defence, the army and mass organisations are involved in the preparations and evacuations. This year, 600,000 people were evacuated in 24 hours as a preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Dennis, reaching almost Category 5 hurricane status as it hit south eastern Cuba. In contrast to George W Bush, the Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro, and his team always visit the areas that have suffered damage as soon as possible after the hurricane has struck with the task of evaluating the effectiveness of the preparations and assessing the medical and housing needs of the population as he did in this case.
Cuba doesn't stop there. Over the years it has responded immediately by sending medical teams to help the survivors of hurricane damage in other countries. In 1998, for example, Hurricane Mitch hit the coasts of Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. The coastal area of these countries, the Mosquito Coast, is inhabited by the poorest people. Hurricane Mitch built up to a powerful Category 4 hurricane and paused inland from the coast, where it dropped all of its water, killing more than 20,000 people. Cuba sent in its doctors straight away, despite the lack of diplomatic relations.
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Pulling communities together
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Alex Marin (above) is from Honduras. His family are from the Garifuna people, British-owned slaves in the St Vincent Islands 300 years ago who rebelled and were subsequently dumped on the Mosquito Coast of Honduras as a punishment. His parents were farmers with a couple of cattle when Hurricane Mitch devastated their community in 1998. They lost everything, including many relatives. Cuban doctors arrived soon after the hurricane and brought medical care and helped pull the community back together.
When Cuba agreed a package of medical aid for the five Central American Republics affected, Alex was selected by his community to go to the Latin American School in Havana for medical training. Alex told us, "When Cuba offered free medical training, I could not believe it. Before the hurricane, there were no doctors in our area. After, everything my parents had built up, a small peasant farm, was destroyed. I will qualify this year and return to my community as a doctor. My family and community will be so proud. This is a big step forward for us. And this was only possible because of socialist Cuba, whose doctors are still caring for my people."
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Tens of thousands of lives were saved as the Cuban Medical Brigades brought health care to areas where there was none. Young people from these areas were selected by the countries concerned and sent to Havana where they received free medical training in order to return to their villages as doctors, replacing the Cubans. This concept has been further developed, thanks to cooperation with Venezuela, and this has resulted in material support for the reconstruction of hurricane damage.
Cuba offers medical aid
Cuba's assistance to other countries struck by hurricanes has not excluded the United States. After Hurricane Katrina hit Florida from the east on 25 August causing loss of human life and heavy material damage, it moved serpent-like into the Gulf of Mexico just missing Cuba but drenching the western province of Pinar del Rio. As it got stronger, on 29 August it pounded the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. On the morning of 30 August, as the last gusts were blowing over these states, the Cuban government realised the magnitude of the disaster that was about to unfold and immediately contacted US government officials through their Interest Section in Washington and offered condolences and medical aid. They put their offer at 12.45 pm asking for "time out" from the state of relations between the two governments because of the gravity of the situation, and because Cuba was nearer to these states than any other country.
Cuba offered to send doctors and nurses as well as three field hospitals to the affected areas. They even suggested that they would not issue publicity about the offer if that would make it easier for the US to accept. At 4.30 pm on that day, after having made the offer, the head of the Cuban Interests Section was received by US Department of State functionary John Reagan.
There was never a response to the offer. A list of countries that had offered help was released to the world by the US government but Cuba was excluded from the list. Three days on, and Cuba was receiving messages from people in those three US states, asking either for Cuban help or questioning why Cuba was not helping. After one more attempt to get a response from the US government, Cuba decided to make its offer public. By this time, it had identified the 1,100 doctors who were on standby with 25 tons of medical aid, ready to go at a moment's notice. But the agreement of the US authorities never came as the situation became more and more desperate, particularly in New Orleans.
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Breached levee at Bellaire Boulevard, New Orleans, 3 September.
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Photo: Digital Globe/www.digitalglobe.com
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Avoidable neglect
If there is anyone who believes that the neglect of the thousands of souls in New Orleans was unavoidable, then they should ask why the US authorities deliberately refused to allow into the area at the earliest time, more than a thousand doctors and medical supplies from the closest country to the disaster. How many lives were lost as a result? Did the US think that the Cubans were not up to the job? That would be the pot calling the kettle black given the Cuban experience, and ignores their aid to two countries affected by Tsunami.
So why would a country faced with such a calamitous disaster refuse such desperately needed medical aid that could arrive within hours?
Imagine, for one moment, that the US had agreed to accept the offer. Now imagine hundreds of young unarmed Cuban doctors in white coats wading through the waters of New Orleans where only armed police dared to venture according to the media; or setting up a field hospital in the Convention Centre, or in the Astrodome in Houston.
Unreachable?
The world's press had access to those parts of New Orleans that the US authorities said they could not reach to rescue the dying. Imagine the reaction of the poor of New Orleans or those queuing at the Convention Centre or the Astrodome for free medical care or a health check or vaccination.
Might they not have questioned why the world's most powerful nation could not look after its own people whilst a poor neighbouring country, that their own government seeks to destroy, can send brave selfless young doctors to care for the poor in what was effectively a free fire zone?
Might they have started to question their own government's private health care system?
Might they not have wondered why Cuba was so adept in dealing with the health needs of the poor, free of charge, across Latin America and the Caribbean while Vice President Cheney's company Halliburton lines itself up for multibillion-ollar contracts to rebuild New Orleans at the same time that the poor are dying. They would have known that Cuba was itself still recovering from Hurricane Dennis, which caused massive damage in July killing ten.
If we assume that the US government itself imagined all of these thoughts, it's not difficult to understand why it deliberately chose to sacrifice the lives of its people rather than allow them to think that there is a working humanitarian alternative to its capitalist doctrine of the primacy of greed and profit over life, even in the field of health care.
A poll conducted by US media network NBC concluded that 74% of Americans wanted the Cuban offer to be accepted and Cuba did not stand its offer down. Forty-eight hours after the offer had been made public and there had been no reply from the US authorities, Cuba introduced the team by television to its public and the world on 5 September.
The number of doctors and others had been increased to around 1,600 including more than 1,000 physicians, 350 intensive care specialists, and specialists in cardiology, paediatrics, surgery and gastroenterology, with an average of ten years' experience each and an average age of 32 years. The volume of medical supplies had been increased to 32 tons.
It was announced that although they were waiting patiently for a reply from the US, the team, now named the Henry Reeves Medical Brigade, would be on permanent standby to go anywhere it was needed in the region to assist in disasters caused by hurricanes or epidemics. Henry Reeves, after whom the Brigade has been named, was a US citizen who fought alongside Cubans in the first Cuban war of independence, dying from his wounds in 1876.
But the doctrine of greed and profit was not the only doctrine that was under threat from Hurricane Katrina. The Gulf coast is home to the US oil industry. Significant refining and drilling capacity was destroyed by Katrina. The price of oil was going through the roof. Capitalist governments screamed that it was a global oil crisis, or it was the result of natural disasters, or the war in Iraq, and Gordon Brown addressed the TUC and called for producers to produce more.
But Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil producer, and an ally of Cuba, was about to turn the doctrine of market forces and high oil prices on its head. Venezuela donated $1 million from the state-owned oil company to the US Red Cross and others. It then offered oil to offset the shortages created by Katrina plus medical facilities, field hospitals and doctors, many Cuban trained.
On 6 September, the first Petrocaribe deal was signed with Jamaica. Petrocaribe is an agreement signed by the regional Caribbean governments that will see Venezuelan oil sold to member countries at very significantly reduced prices. The balance between the cheap price and the market price would be spent on social projects, including social and medical care, training doctors in Cuban Emergency Planning etc. At the same time, Venezuela is looking at ways it can sell oil and petrol very cheaply, specifically to the poor of the US, probably through its string of CITGO petrol stations across southern US states.
The Venezuelan offer of oil and medical supplies was also rejected by the US, as was the Cuban offer of doctors and medical aid. Of course, any suggestion of free organised health care, giving or doing something for nothing or selling oil below market prices, is anathema to capitalism. So much so that they are prepared to sacrifice the lives of their own citizens to prevent them from being contaminated with such ideas.