September 2008
Cuba and Haiti have been hammered by a series of hurricanes and tropical storms over the past month. In Haiti, over 1,000 are dead and as many as 1 million are homeless as flooding has inundated the countryside. In Cuba, agriculture has been devastated, 30,000 homes destroyed and hundreds of thousands damaged, and infrastructure in many parts of the island has been obliterated.
Any country would be challenged to respond effectively to a powerful series of storms like Fay, Gustav, Hannah and Ike. But for Haiti and Cuba, the terrible damage caused by the storms has been amplified by the debilitating political and economic conditions cultivated by U.S. policy.
Haiti was an economic and ecological disaster prior to the storms, with poverty-driven deforestation fueling the floods. U.S. policy has played a major role in keeping Haiti poor and unstable - the U.S. has repeatedly pulled the plug on Haitian democracy with military interventions and has dragged its feet on relief from odious international debt. Both have contributed greatly to Haiti's inability to cope with disaster and have left it dependent upon external aid for recovery.
In contrast, Cuba was able to orchestrate a highly effective evacuation effort in preparation for the storms. Consequently, the Cuban death toll was very low - 7 people died as a result of injuries from Hurricane Ike. Here too, though, U.S. policy is amplifying the destruction. The U.S. embargo of Cuba threatens to severely impede the reconstruction effort and limit the amount of financial aid that can be provided.
Please show your solidarity with the people of Cuba and Haiti by contributing what you can to disaster relief and by working for a change to U.S. policies that create unnatural disasters.
Groups Licensed to Send Relief to Cuba & Haiti
Haiti
Cuba Receive the above collectible Cuba poster by GX Board Member Wanda Whitaker by mailing donation checks of $15 or more to Global Exchange, ear-marked Cuba Hurricane Relief.
Global Exchange will donate all profits to Global Link.
Mail to: 2017 Mission Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, Ca 94110.
News Updates on Cuba and Haiti
