Cuba Gets Some Powdered Milk from Spanish Solidarity Group
The Alhucema Solidarity Initiatives Association based in Seville, Spain also sends medical supplies.
HAVANA TIMES – The Alhucema Association of Solidarity Initiatives in Seville, in the Spanish municipality of Morón de la Frontera, twinned with Morón de Ciego de Ávila since 1995, delivered medical supplies and powdered milk this Tuesday. The items, reports Invasor, were acquired by collection over the last two years in the “solidarity” fair Qué Linda es Cuba. This organization dedicates 20% of its income, says the official press, to “financing the trips and purchasing donations” for the Island, not only for its “twin” city,” but also for other “campaigns,”such as “contributions” of syringes for vaccination against Covid-19 and for “repairing the damage” – it indicates, without details – of the explosion of the Saratoga Hotel in Havana.
The Association members will not only deliver the donations but will also participate in the International Seminar for Peace and for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases that will be held in Guantánamo on May 4 and 5. There are two military bases in Spain that are shared with the United States: an air force base in Morón de la Frontera and a naval station in Rota. The US ceased to have control over these bases in 1998.
The organization has helped Cuba on other occasions, the local press reports, although not by much. Two years ago, it delivered health supplies worth 3,000 euros to two hospitals, and four years ago, 1,000 euros worth of supplies together with the Maximiliano Tornet Association, from Huelva, also in Andalusia.
More advantageous for the Island is the donation of the French association Cuba Coopération France, which, according to Prensa Latina on Sunday, raised a total of 63,000 euros to “support vulnerable sectors” and will send a container of powdered milk to the country.
According to the official media, the organization states that the “immediate objective” is to collect 76,000 euros “in order to send a second shipment of powdered milk, aimed at alleviating the impact of the American blockade* on the population, in particular children and the elderly.”
The first container, however, will not arrive until mid-June, so the powdered milk situation will not improve in the coming days. Last March, the Government hurried to reassure the population, saying that the import of a total of 1,750 tons of food from several countries – 500 from the United States – would guarantee its availability until April.
In February, for the first time in its history, the Cuban government formally requested help from the UN World Food Program to obtain milk for children under the age of seven.
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*Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in the same year in February, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.
Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.
Let be honest Cuba is bankrupt and the gov leaders do not want to change the economic model or give people the freedom to run both co op and private for profits business. If cuban gov does not change the results will be very bad
When the gov put people in jail for filming protests most other people in world will not continue to supply ( donate ) when often some is diverted to certain ( specific) groups in cuba
Only a complete economic reform can save Cuba.
To all those idiots that keep using the word BLOCKADE against the Cuban people , it is not TRUE. What exist is an embargo against the evil dictatorship’s and their military. Cuba buys food ,medicine and has new vehicles imported from Miami ,Florida . Stop letting these liars from using the word BLOCKADE it does not exist. Cuba has trade with 255 countries but Cuba’s dictatorship never pays it’s bills. All that powder milk will go to the hotels. The mypimes and the military and their families. Stop eating your money. It will never reach the children of CUBA or the elderly. Wake up
How on earth does the ‘American blockage’ affect the local shortage of fresh/powdered milk ?
In response to The Anti-Imperialist: one of Fidel Castro’s numerous fallacies, was that he thought he had agricultural expertise. His actions included paying $100,000 to a friend of mine in Ontario, for a Holstein bull – my friend laughing all the way to the bank, and the Castro regime made a concrete statue of the bull at an Artificial Insemination Centre. Another was engaging at a very attractive salary Dr. Reg Preston from the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland. Preston had been carrying out experiments on feeding barley to beef cattle. The consequences are the numerous empty beef lots to be seen scattered around the Cuban countryside. Preston being a sensible fellow moved on and away. But Fidel inherited the largest sugar producing country in the world. Communist policies have reduced production from over 9 (NINE) million tons per year, to 350,000 tons per year and necessarily importation of sugar. Another demonstration of incompetence, was the fruit industry, where the plantations were mismanaged and production fell drastically – the small amount remaining is marketed through a company in Tel Aviv Israel. It may appear illogical for the Castro directed regime to deal with Israel, but no stranger than importing sixteen and a half million tons of frozen chicken per month from the US. remarkably, Israel and the US are the only countries that support retention of the US Embargo up
on Cuba at the UN. Muddle headed incompetence is rife in the Cuban political administration.
This is ridiculous. Cuba has the land, water, climate and expertise to produce milk and other dairy products instead of relying on donations. I guess it will take 100 years of the same government in power to actually feed itself. At 65 years they aren’t even close. The US embargo has nothing to do with Cuba achieving food self sufficiency, in fact it’s all the reason why it should have long ago. However, the embargo is a great catch-all excuse for all the failed farm policies.