Post-Sandy: Castro Realistic & Optimistic
HAVANA TIMES — After touring Santiago de Cuba earlier in the week Cuban President Raul Castro is in Guantanamo today one of the three provinces hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy a week ago.
Castro’s main message is asking people not to lose hope and assuring they will not be abandoned.
The latest destruction reports show over 180,000 damaged or destroyed homes along with over 100,000 hectares (245,000 acres) of crops destroyed, the hardest hit being the sugar crop, along with plantains and other bananas, vegetables and other basic crops.
“It was a truly hard blow; it was a powerful hurricane that developed very quickly. The reality [of the damage] exceeds the photos and images in the press and television: Santiago has been shaken; it looks like a bombed city. But we will recover. You are a tough people. We’ve known that for over a half century,” said Castro.
First vice-president Jose Ramon Machado, who is accompanying Castro in the tour of the affected regions, said “one of the greatest problems in the coming months is going to be providing food for the people.” Cuba imports over half its basic foods.
Cuba already had a shortage of building materials and skilled construction workers before hurricane damage, tensing the situation in the coming period.
In fact, reconstruction from the 2008 earthquake Ike was still not completed in Holguin, the other province hit hard by Sandy.
You write, “If I were from Mexico or France would you attack those countries too or are you fixated on the US?”
I would unquestionably criticise Mexico and France if they supported the US blockade, as I criticise Israel for supporting it. Support is odious, but the main criticism obviously is reserved for the country perpetrating the persecution of Cuba.
The rest of what you wrote speaks for itself.
I bet you were wearing your Che T-shirt when you typed that dribble. If I were from Mexico or France would you attack those countries too or are you fixated on the US?
This is a repetitive theme in your many comments, obviously copied and pasted from a handbook of some kind. It seems to be designed to deliver a message to the Cuban people that they should give up all hope of help and solidarity from the outside world.
I think of it as the ‘Tokyo Rose’ school of enemy propaganda. That was the theme of the ‘Rose’ franchise, as there were several of them, no doubt in common with what we are seeing here.
Apparently Rose only strengthened the resolve of the Allied troops to resist the Japanese enemy. Sounds like it may be time for a new edition of the handbook.
I should hope that all these wide-eyed castristas that support this doomed regime will organize international support to assist the million or so affected people in Cuba. It is one thing to turn on your computer and type a few words of support, and quite another to make a commitment to feed a few Cuban families for awhile. I have found the majority of the Che T-shirt wearing socialists to be long on name-calling and rhetoric and short on action.