[News] A Tale of Two Islands

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/16/a-tale-of-two-islands/


  A Tale of Two Islands

by Vijay Prashad - October 16, 2017 
<https://www.counterpunch.org/author/drespu/>

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Hurricanes develop in the Atlantic Ocean and move across the cold water 
towards the warmer sea of the Caribbean. All that energy journeys, 
picking up steam, driving forward with immense force. This September, 
hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose, Katia and Maria thrust themselves into 
the Caribbean and devastated many of its islands as well as the 
coastline of the United States and Central America. One meteorologist, 
Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, suggested that this 
September was the most deadly hurricane month since 1893.

Changes in the world’s climate, scientists suggest, have made these 
Atlantic cyclones much more powerful than before. Warming waters 
increases the ability of the storms to draw in water vapour and to 
engorge themselves with more energy. These devastatingly formidable 
storms then drag the rising waters to produce dangerous storm surges 
that beat against coastlines and produce large-scale flooding.

Hurricane Irma, which arrived in the Caribbean Sea in early September, 
destroyed many of the small islands such as Anguilla, Antigua, Barbuda 
and St. Martin. Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda said 
that Barbuda, which housed short of 2,000 people, had become “barely 
habitable”. The government called for an evacuation of the island, which 
now has a population of zero. It has been abandoned. This country in the 
Lesser Antilles or the Leeward Islands faces the brunt of hurricanes 
since it is in the mouth of the Caribbean. Daniel Gibbs of the 
government of St. Martin, a French territory also in the Lesser 
Antilles, said that 95 per cent of the island had been destroyed. “It is 
an enormous catastrophe,” said Gibbs, who represents the island in the 
French parliament.

*Cuba and Irma*

Irma, a Category 5 hurricane—the strongest possible—struck Cuba with 
immense force in early September. The storm came fast and hard. The 
devastation was severe. In the small town of Moscu in the municipality 
of Esmeralda (Camaguey province), only 10 of its 289 houses remained 
standing. The Cuban journalist Yaditza del Sol Gonzalez reported for 
/Granma/ that near Jiguey beach “the sea took it all”. The storm surge 
overcame the Malecon sea wall in Havana, sending water into its streets 
with ferocity. Havana, with its old buildings, suffered from flooding 
and power cuts. Ten people died, the majority of them in Havana. Cuba’s 
President Raul Castro took to the airwaves, calling for unity of the 
nation and for reconstruction of the island. “This is not the time to 
mourn,” Castro said, “but to build what the winds of Irma attempted to 
destroy.”

By all indications, the death toll in Cuba was remarkably low as was the 
devastation to the island’s infrastructure. Certainly, homes in the old 
part of Havana are brittle and parts of the infrastructure are in severe 
need of modernisation. But the island’s preparation for the hurricane 
and the general community spirit that prevails there saved it from total 
devastation. Tens of thousands of people had been evacuated from Havana 
in anticipation of the storm, and over a million people from across the 
island went into shelters. One such shelter was at the Karl Marx 
Vocational Pre-University in Matanzas, where volunteers gathered food, 
water and medical supplies for the evacuees.

The country’s pharmaceutical industry halted production of medicines a 
week before the storm in order to build up the stock of hydration salts, 
which were then distributed across the island. Electricity and gas 
supplies were cut before the storm came to the island, and measures were 
taken to protect the lines and transformers from the impact of the winds 
and the flooding. The government made sure to dispatch flour to state 
bakeries, which worked overtime to produce stocks of bread for the 
aftermath of the storm. Agricultural workers from Santiago de Cuba 
harvested their crops before they ripened in the field and distributed 
the produce.

Meanwhile, brigades and defence councils began to conduct 
search-and-rescue operations across the areas most affected by the 
hurricane. “The most important task is, and will be, the preservation of 
life,” said Dr Jose Luis Aparicio Suarez, a coordinator of one of the 
medical brigades. “The recovery will come later, gradually. Health and 
life are the absolute priorities.”

But rebuilding was not left to later. Radio Cadena Agramonte in Camaguey 
reported during the storm that electric workers had begun to restore 
power in the area. Within weeks, such workers restored the electric 
grid, which is not anyway in the best shape. The electric providers 
reported that the storm destroyed two high-tension pylons, downed 3,616 
poles and 2,176 kilometres of power lines, and damaged 1,379 
transformers and several substations. Today, almost the entire island 
has electrical power.

Just before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba, U.S. President Donald Trump renewed 
the embargo of the island. This means that Cuba will be denied crucial 
supplies needed for reconstruction, including financial assistance from 
multilateral organisations. Cuba’s finances cannot manage the 
reconstruction, but nonetheless the government has announced that its 
state budget will finance 50 per cent of the construction materials 
needed for the 158,554 homes that have been affected by the storm. Also, 
the government has said it will provide a 50 per cent discount on 
damaged household goods. For those who have had all their goods 
destroyed, the government has said it will cover 100 per cent of their 
expenses.

*Puerto Rico and Maria*

Hurricane Irma did not directly strike the U.S. territory of Puerto 
Rico, but it did knock out its power grid. More than a million customers 
lost access to power and half of the island’s hospitals went offline. 
This happened without any rainfall on the island and without a direct 
hit from Irma. Last July, the government-owned power company declared 
bankruptcy when it could no longer service its debt of $9 billion. There 
was no money to protect the grid, nor was there money to hastily get it 
back on its feet. Irma’s strike on Puerto Rico was a warning of what was 
to come.

Ten days later, with the power grid still in distress, Hurricane Maria, 
a Category 4 storm, struck Puerto Rico. Power went out across the 
island. Drinking water was no longer available and fuel vanished. The 
3.4 million U.S. citizens of the island found themselves stranded in an 
apocalyptic nightmare. The official death toll was given as 16, although 
the Centre for Investigative Journalism (School of Law at the 
Interamerican University of Puerto Rico) says that there are already 
dozens of confirmed deaths, with the toll likely to rise to the 
hundreds. As hospitals are unable to function, the infirm are under 
danger of death. Dialysis has been halted; oxygen is not available. The 
Demographic Registry that certifies deaths has no power. It cannot do 
its work.

While Cuban journalists and brigades fanned Cuba to provide information 
to the authorities about destruction and reconstruction, Puerto Rico 
went dark. Communications collapsed and information about the damage was 
not easily available. While in Cuba the authorities tried to get exact 
information of the damage done to each home, in Puerto Rico the numbers 
thrown about were the price tag for recovery—between $40 billion and $85 
billion is the estimated insurance claims that will likely be triggered 
by the devastation. It says a great deal about the different approaches 
to disaster: one makes sure each person is tended to and the other 
worries about the cost of the recovery.

Power company officials said it would take at least four, if not six, 
months for the power to be fully restored to Puerto Rico. This is on 
territory that is under U.S. government control, although according to a 
poll only 54 per cent of Americans know that Puerto Ricans are U.S. 
citizens. Recovery has been glacially slow. In Aguadilla, thousands of 
desperate people were given four bottles of water and four snacks. They 
are starving and frustrated. The price of water has skyrocketed from 
$2.99 to $10 in many parts of the island. Carmen Yulin Cruz, the Mayor 
of the capital, San Juan, said: “I’m begging, begging anyone that can 
hear us to save us from dying. If anybody out there is listening to us, 
we are dying and you are killing us with the inefficiency.”

Trump celebrated the “incredible” job his government had done. “The loss 
of life—it’s always tragic—but it’s been incredible, the results that 
we’ve had with respect to loss of life,” he said. “People can’t believe 
how successful that has been, relatively speaking.” He waived the Jones 
Act, which prevents ships from coming directly into Puerto Rico without 
going to a U.S. mainland port. But this will not be enough. Cuba has 
even offered to send its personnel to the island, but the Trump 
administration has not acknowledged the request.

Here is a tale of two islands, one a poor socialist state with 
infrastructure in grave need of modernisation and the other a territory 
of one of the richest countries in the world. One has slowly emerged out 
of the chaos caused by a hurricane’s wrath, while the other cannot see 
the light at the end of the tunnel.

/*Vijay Prashad’s* most recent book is No Free Left: The Futures of 
Indian Communism (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2015)./

-- 
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