Ike advances, President Bush holds firm

Hurricane Ike ravaged eastern Cuba yesterday as its center took an east-west path approximately from Banes to Santa Cruz del Sur. Weakened, it then went over the Caribbean, continuing to the east, and is now making a second landfall in western Cuba south of Artemisa, where it will add to the damage Gustav caused to Pinar del Rio and Havana provinces. Four deaths were reported. The only good news is that Ike didn’t take the path originally forecast, which at one point looked like it would follow Cuba’s central highway from Las Tunas to Havana, and the city of Havana seems to be spared a direct hit. Still, the rain and wind in Havana (gusting to 75 mph, NOAA reported this morning) pose considerable danger.

AP’s roundup is here. A Miami Herald slideshow of wire service photos (Baracoa, Camaguey, Holguin) is here. You can follow radar images of the hurricane here.

You can also read blogger Yoani Sanchez’ description (with photos, titled “Scorched Earth”) of the damage in Pinar del Rio after a weekend trip there.

What can be done? U.S. government aid is not in the cards, and we could have a long debate on who is to blame. Americans can donate to humanitarian agencies that provide relief in Cuba (see below). And direct, family-to-family aid is possible, but is limited by U.S. economic sanctions.

Readers have commented that disaster relief is usually provided, and is best provided by large agencies with experience and logistical capacity. That’s true. But should direct family aid be precluded just because governments and big agencies may be at work?

U.S. regulations limit visits to once every three years, limit remittances to $100 per household per month, and restrict the content of gift parcels to food, medicine, medical supplies and equipment, receive-only radios, and batteries for radios. (In 2004, these items were dropped from the list of permitted items: clothing, personal hygiene items, seeds, fishing equipment, soap-making equipment, and veterinary medicine and supplies. The Federal Register notice explained that gift parcels “decrease the burden on the Cuban regime to provide for the basic needs of its people.”) On top of all that, visits, remittances, and parcels may be sent to immediate family only.

How does this affect the situation today?

It means that a Cuban American who visited his mother last year in Holguin and wants to locate her now and look after her, can’t do so because his visit was too recent, and he has to wait until 2010. It means that a woman who has heard from her brother in Ciego de Avila that his house is intact but his refrigerator is destroyed, cannot send the money to buy a new one, because it would exceed the limit on remittances. It means that in the case of a family in Pinar del Rio whose house was flattened and garden wrecked, their relatives cannot send seeds and new clothes, because those items are now banned. It means that two men in Hialeah who want to draw on their savings to go to Cuba, buy supplies however they can, and put a new roof on their aunt’s house, cannot do so. The aunt is not immediate family, and the visit is not allowed.

You get the idea.

It may be that direct family aid would address only one percent of Cubans’ needs today. But even if it reaches a small percent of Cuban familes, it would resolve the lion’s share of their needs, and it would reduce the burden on the relief agencies that are the only option for everyone else. Why stand in the way of that?

I have never been a fan of President Bush’s Cuba family sanctions. I have never bought the idea that they, as part of the larger embargo, are an expression of American solidarity with the cause of human rights in Cuba, or are going to put decisive pressure on the Havana government.

Today, the family sanctions are even harder to accept. They stand in the way of simple, effective acts of charity that people in Cuba desperately need, and don’t square with the idea of supporting civil society, the bedrock of which is the family.

Dissident leaders such as Martha Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca, Oswaldo Paya, Miriam Leiva, and Oscar Espinosa Chepe – the whole spectrum – have called for a suspension of these family sanctions, as have religious leaders in Cuba (ever since they were adopted), Yoani Sanchez, and many voices in Miami, including the organizations that make up Consenso Cubano.

President Bush has rejected these appeals. If the President sees the dissidents as potential leaders of Cuba, and if he is willing to spend tens of millions to aid their cause, one would think our government would listen to them at a time like this.

How to help: Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the international aid arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, has long supported the work of Caritas, Cuba’s nationwide Catholic charity, in a variety of humanitarian tasks including disaster relief. Caritas has requested assistance to help Gustav’s victims, and CRS is receiving donations for this purpose. If you want to help CRS respond to Caritas’ appeal, you can make a donation to CRS and designate it for “Cuba hurricane relief,” the code is 2770-1284 – you can do it on-line at the CRS donation page, or by mail (Catholic Relief Services, PO Box 17090, Baltimore MD 21203-7090), or by calling 1-888-277-7575.