Contrasts in concern for the poor
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Saturday 03 September 2005
Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba
with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to
higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000
houses, no one died.
What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson
Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and specialist
in
Latin America, "the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin
with. People know ahead of time where they are to go."
"Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge," said Valdes. Contrast this with
George W. Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The day after Katrina hit the
Gulf Coast, Bush was playing golf. He waited three days to make a TV
appearance and five days before visiting the disaster site. In a scathing
editorial
on Thursday, the New York Times said, "nothing about the president's demeanor
yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that
he understood the depth of the current crisis."
"Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable" in Cuba, Valdes said.
"Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family
doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already
know, for example, who needs insulin."
They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, "so
that people aren't reluctant to leave because people might steal their
stuff," Valdes observed.
After Hurricane Ivan, the United Nations International Secretariat for
Disaster Reduction cited Cuba as a model for hurricane preparation. ISDR
director
Salvano Briceno said, "The Cuban way could easily be applied to other
countries with similar economic conditions and even in countries with greater
resources that do not manage to protect their population as well as Cuba does."
Our federal and local governments had more than ample warning that
hurricanes, which are growing in intensity thanks to global warming, could
destroy New
Orleans. Yet, instead of heeding those warnings, Bush set about to prevent
states from controlling global warming, weaken FEMA, and cut the Army Corps of
Engineers' budget for levee construction in New Orleans by $71.2 million, a
44 percent reduction.
Bush sent nearly half our National Guard troops and high-water Humvees to
fight in an unnecessary war in Iraq. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief
for Jefferson Paris in New Orleans, noted a year ago, "It appears that the
money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and
the war in Iraq."
An Editor and Publisher article Wednesday said the Army Corps of Engineers
"never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq,
as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -
was the reason for the strain," which caused a slowdown of work on flood
control and sinking levees.
"This storm was much greater than protection we were authorized to provide,"
said Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager in the New Orleans district
of the corps.
Unlike in Cuba, where homeland security means keeping the country secure
from deadly natural disasters as well as foreign invasions, Bush has failed to
keep our people safe. "On a fundamental level," Paul Krugman wrote in
yesterday's New York Times, "our current leaders just aren't serious about some
of
the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't
like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on prevention
measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice."
During the 2004 election campaign, vice presidential candidate John Edwards
spoke of "the two Americas." It seems unfathomable how people can shoot at
rescue workers. Yet, after the beating of Rodney King aired on televisions
across the country, poor, desperate, hungry people in Watts took over their
neighborhoods, burning and looting. Their anger, which had seethed below the
surface for so long, erupted. That's what's happening now in New Orleans. And
we,
mostly white, people of privilege, rarely catch a glimpse of this other
America.
"I think a lot of it has to do with race and class," said Rev. Calvin O.
Butts III, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "The people
affected were largely poor people. Poor, black people."
New Orleans Mayor Ray Angina reached a breaking point Thursday night. "You
mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that
have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure
out a way to authorize the resources we need? Come on, man!"
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had boasted earlier in the day
that FEMA and other federal agencies have done a "magnificent job" under the
circumstances.
But, said, Nagin, "They're feeding the people a line of bull, and they are
spinning and people are dying. Get off your asses and let's do something!"
When asked about the looting, the mayor said that except for a few
"knuckleheads," it is the result of desperate people trying to find food and
water to
survive.
Nagin blamed the outbreak of violence and crime on drug addicts who have
been cut off from their drug supplies, wandering the city, "looking to take the
edge off their jones."
When Hurricane Ivan hit Cuba, no curfew was imposed; yet, no looting or
violence took place. Everyone was in the same boat.
Fidel Castro, who has compared his government's preparations for Hurricane
Ivan to the island's long-standing preparations for an invasion by the United
States, said, "We've been preparing for this for 45 years."
On Thursday, Cuba's National Assembly sent a message of solidarity to the
victims of Hurricane Katrina. It says the Cuban people have followed closely
the news of the hurricane damage in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and the
news has caused pain and sadness. The message notes that the hardest hit are
African-Americans, Latino workers, and the poor, who still wait to be
rescued and taken to secure places, and who have suffered the most fatalities
and
homelessness. The message concludes by saying that the entire world must feel
this tragedy as its own.
____________________________________
_Marjorie Cohn_ (http://truthout.org/contactmc.php) , a contributing editor
to t r u t h o u t, is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law,
executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US
representative to
the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.
