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News & Views
webimage, Cuba, 2003
Humanitarian
Aspects of The
Indian Ocean
Catastrophe
Cover of Cuba childrens book
Cuba
According to a news piece in the
LANCET, 1 the ’41- year battle of
spite between Cuba and the USA
has intensified’. In July 2004, restrictions
on travel and remittances from the USA
were tightened, and US firms were fined
for unauthorised export of medicines.
The US embargo on Cuba has frequently
been modified in response to
domestic electoral interests. So in the US
election year, it is hardly surprising that
once again political expediency rather
than humanitarian imperatives are driving
US policies. Worryingly, there has
also been a scaling up of talk in the USA
about regime change – by transition
rather than succession – in Cuba. In
January 2004, the University of Miami
and the US Agency for International
Development convened a seminar on
‘Humanitarian Aid for a Cuba
Transition’. Here US government representatives
suggested the use of health
and nutrition assistance as a means to
effect regime change. Attendees were
exhorted to learn from the Coalition
Provisional Authority actions in Iraq to
prepare for a post-Castro Cuba – specific
lessons were not detailed.
Sri Lanken town of Hikkaduwa,
after a tsunami hit on 26
December 2004.
The Humanitarian Policy Group has produced a briefing note covering
some of the humanitarian aspects of the Indian Ocean catastrophe. It provides
a series of links to relevant papers, websites and other sources,
including research conducted by ODI. This can be found at
http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/index.html. These are preliminary reflections
only and there are plans to produce a revised version when the facts and issues
become clearer. Also on the HPG site is a short note by Paul Harvey on the
potential use of cash and vouchers in situations of this kind.
On the Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) site, you will find a short
commissioned piece The Asian tsunami: The implications for preparedness and
contingency planning by John Twigg and Richard Choularton,
http://www.odihpn.org/report.aspID=2690.
Inter-Agency Meeting on
Community Therapeutic Care
Reuters/Beawharta, courtesy, www.alertnet.org
Some attendees denounced the use of
humanitarian assistance to divide and
destabilise a post-Castro Cuba, pointing
out that it would jeopardise the chance
for peaceful change and rob Cubans of
sovereignty in deciding their future.
Although, long a shining jewel in Cuba’s
crown, the country’s impressive health
cannot go on forever. Political instability
would only place further stress on a system
that is already struggling. Cuba’s
remarkable health record, even during
the economic crisis of the 1990s, has
always frustrated the US administration.
The article concludes by saying that
‘In the event of a humanitarian crisis,
funds from family overseas and high
education and health standards would
help protect Cubans from large rises in
mortality rates. Those who suffer the
most will, as in the 1990s, be the elderly
who could become the quiet deaths in a
society heavily focused on protecting the
young’.
FANTA, SC US and Concern hosted an
inter-agency meeting on Community
Therapeutic Care between February
28th and March 2nd, 2005 in Washington.
The main aims of the meeting were to;
i) Identify issues and challenges in imple
mentation, integration and scaling up.
ii) Discuss mechanisms to ensure quality
control of CTC implementation.
iii) Documentation (in a synthesis report) of
issues and challenges in CTC implementation
iv) Establish a mechanism for improved,
cross organizational capacity building
and training.
Key findings of the meeting will be highlighted
in Field Exchange 26 and a full report
of the meeting will be prepared by the ENN
and made available in the coming months.
CTC meeting in progress, Wahington DC.
Garfield.R (2004): Health care in Cuba
and the manipulation of humanitarian imperatives.
The LANCET, vol 364, September 11th,
pp 1007
R.Gill, USA, 2005
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