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.”
Why the heck can't they feed themselves? Cuba is warm and gets plenty of rain; most crops should grow like weeds there. They are surrounded by an ocean teeming with fish.
Oh, yeah; it's the communism thing. No incentive to produce, and if you let them out in a fishing boat they won't come back!
How much do you want to bet that Castro's family and his troops have a surplus of food and other things.
That's right. Americans have to first go to Canada or someplace that has travel connections To Cuba.
That's so naive.
The true travel restrictions are imposed by Castro; what makes you think that the man who does not allow American television, radio, or access to the Internet for the Island's inhabitants, would just sinmply allow thousands of Americans unrestricted access to the Island?
You're starting to read like DU.
"Several"?
MOST of the people down here approve of the restrictions.
Who imposes the harshest travel restrictions on its citizens...Cuba, or the U.S.?
Why don't you inform yourself before making such absolutely erroneous statements?
| This web page is set up with the restrictions and warnings to Americans in traveling around the world. The following 7 countries NO American can travel to or from unless they have a rarely granted permit. |
|---|
| Cuba. |
| Iran. |
| Iraq. |
| Libya. |
| North Korea. |
| Serbia. |
| Sudan. |
There are only "several" who Bush listens to.
I'm not too sure "most" Miami Cubans approve of the new restrictions.
Obviously Cuba imposes harsher restrictions. After all, they're a police state.
Well, I am sure.
Yeah, I'm not defending the Castro regime.
I was just there. These people are ready to revolt. They just need a little push, and to see that Americans aren't teh big bad boogy men Castro tells them we are.
So, what you are saying here is than in an election year, in a key State, with a close race, Bush would listen to a few hardliners, and risk pissing off the many voters?
Yeah, right...
Americans ARE allowed to travel to each of those countries, except for Cuba.
Source: The US Department of State. Just look at each country page on their website. It will tell you what the travel requirements are.
You may not be defending it, but you're supporting it.
I believe that's what he is doing.
I know one of those hardliners who pushed Bush to impose the new restrictions, and now regrets it because he knows it's bad, counter-productive policy.
You don't read very well...do you?
I am an American, and the restrictions imposed on my ability to travel to Iran are more severe than the ones imposed on me to travel to Cuba.
No, I wasn't supporting it.
Tourist dollars are causing a lot of corruption in the regime.
The more, the better.
So, your knowledge of what the many think is based on the opinion of the one?
Why dso you have to be such an asshole?
Can't you post without being so confrontational?
I get my info from the State Department, and according to the State Department, I am legally allowed to tracel to Iran and all those other countries, except for Cuba.
Tourist dollars are turning Cuban women into prostitutes BECAUSE of the regime.
No, beause the policies don't make any sense, and most Cubans know that.
I may be confrontational, but at least I am not vulgar.
The information I just posted came from a site discussing the State Department travel restrictions on US citizens.
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