US offers disaster aid to Cuba after hurricane

Saturday, August 14, 2004

WASHINGTON, USA (AFP): In a rare display of amity toward communist Cuba, the United States on Friday offered its longtime foe 50,000 dollars in disaster assistance and urged US-based humanitarian groups to send aid to the island after it was badly hit by Hurricane Charley.

"The United States regrets the damage caused by Hurricane Charley and expresses its solidarity with the Cuban people," deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli.

"The Cuban people can count on America's support in these difficult times," he said in a statement. "We are working to assist the Cuban people with the humanitarian crisis they now face."

Hurricane Charley tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees and downed power lines as it drove across Cuba early Friday, but no deaths were immediately reported.

Violent winds battered the capital, Havana, damaging buildings and bringing down power and telephone cables. Electricity and gas supplies were cut and floods were reported in parts of the south coast after the storm churned waves of up to five meters (16.5 feet).

Cuban civil defense authorities said about 215,000 people were evacuated from risk areas before the storm arrived.

Ereli said the US aid money, a symbolic donation, would be provided through the US Interests Section in Havana, Washington's de facto embassy there, and urged Cuban authorities to ensure all assistance was distributed.

"The United States calls upon the government of Cuba to facilitate the provision of this assistance directly to the Cuban people," he said, adding that Washington was "urging all US non-governmental organizations and religious groups with the necessary licenses to export humanitarian goods to Cuba."

The United States has maintained a strict embargo on Cuba for more than 40 years and under the restrictions such organizations need special licenses from the US Treasury Department to send goods to the island.

In June, Washington tightened restrictions on visits and money remittances to Cuba in a move aimed at undermining the island's communist government, angering Havana and many of the 1.5 million Cubans living in the United States.

In addition to decrying numerous Cuban human rights violations -- including a massive crackdown on dissidents last year -- the United States has charged Cuban leader Fidel Castro with attempting to develop chemical and biological weapons.

The United States has designated Cuba a "state sponsor of terrorism" along with Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Despite that pariah status Washington has provided relief aid to Cuba and other countries on the blacklist in the wake of natural disasters.

Most recently, the United States sent humanitarian aid and disaster relief teams to Iran after last year's devastating earthquake in Bam.

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