[van-discuss] Re: [van-announce] Help a youth go to Cuba

Tue Nov 5 21:56:35 PST 2002

Dear Geordie,

First, thank you for all of the resources on Cuba you've provided 
below. I am eager to review every bit of this information, and I 
encourage others to do so too. You can also find a lot of information 
on Cuba at our website: http://www.cubasolidarity.ca

Also, I super appreciate the comradely approach you and brother Eric 
R. have approached the always controversial topic Cuba invokes.

I have family in Cuba who live in Havana's poorest section. I have 
lived with them and I have witnessed the severity of lack of material 
goods they face -- along with their neighbours and the immediate 
community which is typical of many other Cuban communities.

My partner who grew up in Cuba and defends his country fervently 
agrees with me on the points that follow.

Their is a housing shortage in Cuba but no one lives on the streets 
or sleeps at night without shelter. This is because families all stay 
together in one house and those without family share housing with 
friends. It's tight and it's uncomfortable but it is how Cubans 
survive and they do it with dignity and with pride to ensure no one 
suffers. This example is not unlike how Canadians and people in the 
U.S. did things during the Great Depression. I know, this is how my 
grandparents lived.

And people watch out to make sure each and every person has something 
to eat within their block or neighbourhood if someone is hungys. It 
is just that simple. No one let's anyone suffer.

This is not socialism. It is not communism. It is collectivism and 
workers solidarity aspiring to and laying the foundations at the 
grassroots conscious level for  socialism.

In my example of the support that was given by the democratically 
elected Cuban government to the workers whose jobs were wiped out by 
the two big hurricanes earlier this year I failed to mention that 
every single person who could not go to work as a result was and 
continues to be paid 100% of their wages. They didn't have to apply 
for welfare or U.I. They just kept and will continue to get paid 
until their workplaces are operational.

Anyway, when you look, really look at Cuba's problems they stem not 
from the failings of  the government (their government makes many 
mistakes but it is quick to remedy them because the distance between 
the people and the administration is short) instead from the 
crippling ugly punitive results and effects of the U.S. blockade of 
the island.

The fact that the blockade is directed at knee-capping and 
demoralizing the people of Cuba, yet they remain and increasing 
support their countries efforts to build socialism is truly 
remarkable and is testament to the extend to which each and every 
individual on the island is schooled and given the tools to choose 
socialism for their future.

I will response at length and in greater detail soon. At the moment I 
am desperately trying to keep a couple dozen people off to Cuba for 
some important conferences and events against corporate globalization 
and impending imperialist war.

Let's keep the discussion open. And thanks again for your sincere 
concern on this most important question.

Yours in solidarity,

Marcel Hatch

At 23:49 -0500 11/5/02, Geordie Birch wrote:
>said Marcel Hatch (on 2002-11-04),
>
>> At 23:52 -0500 11/3/02, Geordie Birch wrote:
>> >said Marcel Hatch (on 2002-11-01),
>
>> Cuba is very different than BC under the NDP.
>
>point taken (and thanks for a thoughtful response to my flamebait.)
>
>> Homelessness does not exist in Cuba. Hunger too is absent. To be
>> certain, more housing IS needed and many Cubans would like and could
>> use more food.
>
>This makes no sense.  "More housing IS needed" implies homelessness and
>"many Cubans would like and could use more food" implies hunger.
>
>Homelessness isn't just a guy with two loaded shopping carts living in a
>cardboard box in the town square.  Hunger isn't just a kid with a
>distended belly, too weak to brush the flies off her face.
>
>Geordie.
>
>
>http://www.campus.ncl.ac.uk/cardo/virtualconf/papers/Definitions.htm
><-- `This paper explores the diverse definitions of homelessness in 10
>developing countries and how those definitions have developed. Definition
>is important because "... most researchers agree on one fact: who we
>define as homeless determines how we count them."'
>
>http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/06/06/cuba.housing/ <-- Brief
>first-hand accounts of homelessness in Havana.
>
>http://64.21.33.164/CNews/y00/jun00/19e3.htm  <-- Government Involves
>Physicians In Plan To Eradicate Homeless.
>
>http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/isc/UTarticle.htm  <-- `...housing for the masses
>isn't much of a priority in a city where 30,000 people live in permanent
>public shelters, and many more live in severely crowded apartments and
>houses -- though homelessness does not officially exit.'
>
>http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1997/10/06/intl/intl.4.html  <-- `"This
>law against the Palestinos, it's really aimed at keeping down the
>prostitution problem," says a Havana ice-cream seller. "There are too many
>girls from the east [end of Cuba] who think they can make easy dollars
>moving here and hooking up with the tourists."'
>
>`"A lot of the petty thieves and beggars we now see in our streets are not
>people from Havana, they're the scum who are unwilling to work in the
>countryside," adds a woman selling oranges in a Havana market. "They
>should go back to the fields they came from."'
>
>http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagjc005.html  <--  `Official
>statistics corroborate the visual perspective. According to 1997
>statistics, metropolitan Havana had over 2,200,000 inhabitants living in
>560,000 dwellings. Of these, half were ranked as defective or in bad
>condition, while 60,000 were beyond repair and should be demolished. There
>are 75,000 with "apuntalamientos" and over 7,800 are waiting to be
>"apuntaladas" to prevent their derrumbe. (San Lazaro) According to the
>same source, by 1996 there were 188 marginal neighborhoods, lacking the
>most essential services, comprising 23,000 dwellings and 76,000 residents.
>Another official report indicated the presence of 1,500
>(ciudadelas-cuarterias), 1000 of which were ranked in bad condition. Due
>to the derrumbes, a total of 6,000 families needed shelter (albergue),
>while only 350 had received it; also 500 multidwelling buildings were in
>great risk of a derrumbe and 40 were considered to be "miracously" still
>standing.'
>
>`Most of those neighborhoods in bad conditions are inhabited by migrants
>from the interior, mostly from the former Oriente province, nicknamed
>"palestinos", coming to the capital seeking better job opportunities and
>greater availability of consumer goods. Indeed, internal migration has
>been a critical factor in the growth of Cuba's capital, which is
>considered beyond the capability to adequately support that population.
>According to those official sources, that type of migration averaged
>annually between 10 to 12,000 persons for the 60's decade through 80's,
>while by 1996, it reached 28,000 with a growing trend. To make future
>prospects worse, a recent investigation by Havana's Centro de Estudios
>Demograficos (CEDEM) indicated that about 185,000 Cubans from the interior
>would like to move to the capital.'
>
>http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~delacova/cuba/racial-attitudes.htm <--`In
>Cuba, the word oriental, meaning a person from those provinces, is
>virtually synonymous with "black." In Havana, people sometimes refer to
>easterners as palestinos, or poor people without a fixed home.'
>
>`While official statistics suggest Santiago has salaries and infant
>mortality rates comparable to the country as a whole, interviews tell a
>different story. "I have been to other provinces, and I can tell you that
>here in Santiago we have an enormous number of children who are
>malnourished," said Dr. Teresa de la Cruz, a pediatrician assigned by the
>government to the poor, largely black, neighborhood of Chicharrones.'
>
>`She said workers living in marginal neighborhoods in Santiago earn barely
>more than 100 pesos a month, less than $5.  Those people in Chicharrones
>who work in hotels tend to be cooks and other back-area workers, people in
>the neighborhood said.'
>
>http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/search/sfl-sierra09d 
>ec09.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean
><-- `Despite their apparent patriotism, thousands have left cities and
>towns in Cuba's easternmost provinces in the past decade, often taking up
>residence illegally in Havana's crowded tenements, where they are known as
>"Palestinos," or Palestinians, because of their wandering homelessness.'
>
>`Unemployment in these provinces is two to three times greater than the
>national average, according to Granma, the communist party's newspaper.
>Dollars are scarcer in this part of the island and in recent years serious
>droughts have caused serious food shortages.'
>
>http://www.cubafreepress.org/art/apic970703k.html  <-- `It's time to
>report on what I saw last October 25th at the site of a lot extending from
>Miraflores 250 and old Miraflores, in Havana.  All the residents from
>about 20 families were evicted.  To be exact.  All the neighbors
>between 3rd Street and Lindero.  These compatriots were violently and
>indiscriminately thrown out from their homes due to specific instances of
>homelessness which took place in their native provinces, or any of the
>other areas to the East of Havana City and Pinar del Rio to the West:
>the  electricity was cut off, power outtages, lack of drinking water even
>worse than in the capital, restrictions in the rationing of the food
>stuffs, and minimal conditions for basic output at their job sites.'
>
>
>
>
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