Maravi

Fidel urges rebuilding after Hurricane Gustav

Fidel urges rebuilding after Hurricane Gustav
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Sunday September 07, 2008 [04:00]

FIDEL Castro has asked Cubans to fight their shallowness and selfishness as the island may require some US $10 billion to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by Hurricane Gustav last Saturday. The former president said on Wednesday that Gustav's adverse effects particularly in Isle of Youth and Pinar del Rio provinces were like a nuclear strike.

"But we cannot entertain illusions. This hurricane has left behind one hundred thousand houses affected to a higher or lesser degree and the almost complete loss of things necessary after the tragedy," said Fidel in a Cuba debate posting.
He said Cuba now needed 1.5 million hurricane-proof houses for 3.5 million people.
Fidel said at international estimates, US $10 billion was required for 100,000 houses.

"To this we must add the cost of the affected social facilities that must be rebuilt, the economic facilities and those required for development," he said. "The resources, I repeat, will only come from our labours. While the new generations carry out this task, the men and women living in this country are called upon to display the solidarity, the courage and the fighting spirit shown by the comrades from Pinar del Rio and the Isla de la Juventud Isle of Youth."

Fidel said now the battle consisted in feeding the victims of the hurricane.
He said the difficulty was not in reestablishing energy as soon as possible.
Fidel explained that the problem in the Isla de la Juventud was that out of 16 bakeries, all of them equipped with electric ovens and power generators, only two could be immediately operational because the buildings had been severely damaged.
He said the area required an enormous amount of roofing and other materials to repair the houses in the province separated from the main island by the sea.
Fidel warned that the goods did not come out of the blue and sharing implied making sacrifices.

"Let's not forget this in a few days," he said.
"These adverse events should serve to make us work more efficiently every day and to make a more rational and fair use of every piece of material. We must fight our own shallowness and selfishness. Nobody will do it for us."
Meanwhile, Fidel said in the US what was at stake was not a change of system but how to preserve it at lower cost.

He said at the moment, in the second half of the year, the empire USA was taking a difficult test which involved its capacity to face up to the challenges brought about by its lifestyle at the expense of the rest of the peoples.

"Now they need to change the skipper (president)," said Fidel. "Bush and Cheney have almost been marginalised from the Republican's campaign for they are considered warmongers and undesirable. The developed imperialism will end up killing all those who try to enter its territory to become endured labourers and to share in its consumption. It's already doing it.

It's huge, the chauvinism and egotism generated by that system."
The US goes for presidential polls on November 4, 2008. The Democrats are fielding Barack Obama while the ruling Republican Party is fielding John McCain.

Labels: CUBA, FIDEL CASTRO

posted by MrK @ 3:30 AM