One-Man Storm
Investor's Business Daily
Monday, July 18, 2005
Tyranny: Fidel Castro is facing revolts after Cuba was hit by its worst hurricane in memory. The destruction will cost $3 billion. But Castro is doing everything he can to keep aid out. And that's an outrage.
Following Hurricane Dennis, a different wind is blowing through Cuba — the wind of change. Three spontaneous and rare demonstrations sprang up in Havana this week. Fed-up Cubans attacked an electrical substation after learning of yet another delay in restoring power. Other angry Cubans protested housing evictions.
The despair from hurricane damage on a neglected and oppressed people is leading to protests about Castro's rule. The third protest commemorated Castro's military assault on a boat of 41 fleeing refugees 11 years ago.
Cubans are in a dark mood. In the hurricane rubble, Castro's failed regime offers them nothing. The damage inflicted by the hurricane is worse than anyone realized. The category 4 storm howled across nearly the length of the island at 135 mph for 12 hours, knocking out electricity and power. Some areas are yet to be heard from.
The government admits 16 deaths — with unofficial estimates higher — signaling a breakdown of Cuba's civil defense system. Aid officials, who believed the system was good, privately admit shock.
Cuba's now a ruin atop a ruin. Everything's falling down. The housing stock, already rotten, is short 500,000 units. Cuba now needs repairs for another hurricane-hit 120,000 units, and thousands of those are total losses. The U.N. says 75% of the population is feeling it. With little left to lose, and state failure in reconstruction ahead, Cubans have begun to protest.
That Castro's slamming the door on international aid is an outrage. The problem is not the initial offer of U.S. aid that Castro turned down, calling it "miserable." Castro also warned Europe not to help, snarling that he didn't like their foreign policies.
Those are political reasons, reprehensible in themselves as Cubans suffer. More telling are the obstacles Castro has thrown up against private aid efforts. The State Department handed its rejected cash to nongovernmental organizations, and already one has had its 300-pound shipment turned away. It was trying to send buckets, chlorination tablets and blankets, but wanted to deliver them privately, not through Cuban state agents.
Castro has also turned down a U.S. disaster assistance response team, known as a DART, to assess affected areas and determine where aid is needed. These DARTs are the same highly skilled teams that swiftly pinpointed where emergency aid to tsunami-ravaged Sumatra was needed in the first hours, giving private aid organizations a road map for efficient aid delivery.
Castro doesn't want these private aid groups to see or have contact with Cubans who are beginning to challenge him. Amid the rubble, his only concern isn't reconstruction but clinging to power in his brittle, failed tyranny. That's why help is being shut out.
Castro says he needs $400 million to rebuild. He still has not asked even the U.N. for aid, suggesting he trusts no one. He can't rebuild on his own, so there won't be much rebuilding. But that doesn't mean the international community shouldn't speak out. Lifesaving aid to Cuba should not be subordinated to Castro's obsession with power. Fact is, he's already lost power.
Dennis has left Cuba in matchsticks. Castro must not get a pass to obstruct help just because he fears the matchsticks are igniting.
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