Regards, Ivan
Posted on 07/17/2004 4:21:59 PM PDT by MadIvan
PENSIONERS in Cuba are being left to starve in government-run homes as food shortages caused by inefficient distribution and drought sweep one of the world’s last communist strongholds.
Cuban journalists say that the elderly are reduced to exchanging rations of tobacco and toothpaste for food, while residents of old people’s homes — or “grandparents’ homes” as they are known — make do with the odd bowl of rice or potatoes.
“Even people being admitted to hospital have to provide their own food,” said Eric Driggs Gonzalez, humanitarian aid co-ordinator for the Institute of Cuban Studies in Florida.
The food shortage has made it increasingly difficult for people who depend on government rationing to obtain basic supplies. The lack of some items even in normally well supplied “dollar stores” has raised fears of a crisis similar to one in the early 1990s when malnutrition was accompanied by an outbreak of eye disease.
The United Nations World Food Programme has described the drought in eastern Cuba, where cattle are dying and milk production has dwindled to a trickle, as the worst in a decade. June 2004 was the driest month in Cuban history.
A recent attempt by the United States to stem the flow of dollars into Cuba may further complicate matters. Washington argues that its tough limits on travel and sending money to Cuba will help to hasten the fall of Fidel Castro’s regime.
However, even many Cuban exiles who are supportive of President George W Bush fear that the first victims of the new rules will not be Castro and his cronies but ordinary Cubans struggling to survive.
Journalists reporting from Cuba for Cubanet.org, a website run by Florida-based opponents of the Castro regime, claim that already the elderly are finding it difficult to get by on state pensions of only $8 (£4.30) a month and that those who do not receive dollars from relatives living abroad are particularly vulnerable to hunger.
At homes for the elderly the situation is dire. “For the past four months they’ve been getting only a meagre portion of rice and the occasional bit of boiled potato or plantain,” one of the journalists reported.
“The treatment of the elderly,” wrote another, “is far from corresponding to the official propaganda which affirms that in Cuba old age is lived in dignity and security.”
According to Driggs Gonzalez, the hospital system is also feeling the strain: “It is common now for people being admitted to hospital to be asked to take their own sheets and food with them. The health system was supposedly the jewel of the revolution.”
Cuba has been struggling to feed its 11m people ever since the downfall of Soviet communism and the loss of its main sponsor and trade partner. The drought, coupled with the lack of money for cattle feed, have ravaged milk and beef production. The sugar and coffee crops are at their lowest levels in half a century.
At the same time monthly subsidised ration allowances have grown slimmer over the years, providing people with what most experts agree is less than two weeks’ supply of food every month. Eggs, for example, are restricted to six per person a month.
To supplement such rations, Cubans can shop at different types of state-run and independent markets that charge dollar prices. Although the average monthly salary is about $10, many Cubans receive dollars from relatives living abroad.
The American restrictions that came into the effect at the end of last month bar Americans from sending money to relatives other than spouses, parents, grandparents or children. From now on Americans are permitted one visit only every three years to family members in Cuba — previously they could visit once a year — and there are no humanitarian exceptions.
The amount they can spend there has been reduced from $167 a day to $67 and there are more restrictions on the goods that they can take with them.
Such measures were seen in an election year as an effort by the Bush administration to win Cuban-American votes in the pivotal state of Florida. Yet the issue has provoked a rift in the community.
“The older generation are generally in favour,” said Driggs Gonzalez. “But younger Cuban Americans, or more recent immigrants who still have numerous family members in Cuba, are very much opposed.”
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Man, Castro has outlived how many US Presidents? How many Soviet dictators?
He'll outlive God too.
The liberal perception of Tahiti, who would have thunk it?
What was the cost to others for his long life however?
Eight Presidents. GW Bush is Castro's 9th.
Soviet Leaders? I think 6?
Someone call Steven Spielberg, Danny Glover, and the rest of that Castro-loving mob of airheads.
Isn't this what the dims accuse W of doing? I bet you won't hear a peep about this, from them, except to blame it on W.
I have had a feeling for a couple of years that a second term for Bush will equal freedom for Cuba. He may have been toppled by now if all those left wing celebrities had not spent years kissing his ass.
exactly
I wouldn't touch that bet with a ten foot fiberglass rod!
Unlikely, however he may outlive Ala.
...PENSIONERS in Cuba are being left to starve in government-run homes...
How French of them.
I bet Castro is eating good.
The "people's revolution" sure did right by him!
Well they may be hungry, but I've read that they have a great government run free healthcare system.
</sarcasm>
Uh-huh. Sure.
Given his approval of the CFR assault on the First Amendment, his first term didn't even equal freedom for the USA.
He won't do anything proactive; he's just waiting for that old bastard Castro to die, like the rest of us.
"Man, Castro has outlived how many US Presidents? How many Soviet dictators?"
Recall his doctor just said he could live till he's 120 or something like that.
By that time, Chelsea Clinton might be President.
God help us all then.
I'm generally in sympathy with measures intended to help bring down Castro, but the limit on family visits seems overly harsh to me. Once every three years, with no humanitarian exceptions? If your Mom's dying in Cuba, you have to time your trip exactly right (as if anyone could). I don't like that part a bit.
And they all know how to read.
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