Re: Miami nuns put politics aside to help storm-battered Cuba

On Sep 24, 6:40 am, PL <P...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snipping portions of PL's posting already debunked here, or too lame
to bother with]

The Us government is a loot better equipped than any private
organization to deliver aid.

UN aid agencies and the Red Cross are probably more effective than the
US government ever was.

It would make no sense.

It makes no sense to let in agents of a hostile foreign power

(snip)

a plane landing to be unloaded is hardly an invasion.
But please explain why national of 25 European countries are "hostile
foreign powers"


I never said they were. Those without a standard cooperation agreement
were requested to send aid through third parties like the UN, Red
Cross and the Catholic Church. What is wrong with that?


Note that you yourself have been forced to admit that the regime claims
ownership of all goods donated to the church.

Much to your chagrin, church charities have a good working
relationship with Cuban authorities.

Some info on how it works:

Even the Church NGO 'Caritas', a distributor of medicines, is
obliged to give the State a percentage of its proceeds.'

Report of the Pax Christi Netherlands Delegation to Cuba
Visit between the 18th and the 31th of January 1998http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/pax1.html

And again, right now under the Cuban system the government is the sole
owner of everything, so that even when Caritas receives a shipment of
medicines or something like that, it has to work very closely with the
government to store them and to distribute them.

This is what you mean by "obliged to give the State a percentage of
its proceeds???" Once again, we see what a truly desperate liar you
are!


But Caritas I think
has developed some very positive relationships with government
officials.

Thanks for confirming I was right. What is your point?


They have what they call mixed commissions, in which church
representatives meet with government representatives in the Ministry
of Health or whatever ministry is concerned in a particular area. And
Caritas proposes what they want to do and they don't always get what
they want. They don't always have the latitude that they would desire
to expand their social services, but they are gaining space. And
that's certainly the good news of the past several years.http://www.commongroundradio.org/shows/98/9852.html

The common threads in engagement with Cuba seem to be the
identification of a mutual interest and the perseverance
required to deal with Cuba’s bureaucracy, which often seems to
represent a gulf of communication. One official with long
experience in Cuba notes that “information is tightly controlled…after
a time they become
more open, but still there is a culture of secrecy.” Foreign officials
are often vexed when
Cuban officials avoid responding to proposals rather than simply
decline them. Others tell
of a heavy political content in decisions that would seem to be
apolitical anywhere else.
In nearly all cases, whether a foreign investment project or an aid
program is in play, the
foreign agency must be prepared for delays in decisionmaking. One
foreign official was
exasperated when, after long negotiations and joint planning sessions
for a development
project, his Cuban counterpart announced, “The project is completely
approved, all we lack
is a date.” From his point of view, the lack of a date meant that
there was no project,
because his organization’s budgeting depended on a start date being
approved."http://lexington.server278.com/docs/cuba2.pdf


No names are mentioned here (typical), but as you point out above,
Caritas (and probably many other NGO's)have "very positive
relationships with government officials."


I have also shown that politics plays a role (to sanction dissidents) in
the distribution of aid by the regime.

No, you haven't.

False.http://groups.google.be/group/soc.culture.cuba/browse_thread/thread/3...

that is unacceptable.
Need and politics don't mix.

Then send aid through neutral third parties.

they can't operate independently in Cuba as shown above.

Bull***. From your original posting here, "The sisters have a long
record of getting U.S.-licensed goods to the island without Cuban
government interference." And Caritas, reports "very positive
relationships with government officials." There is also no indication
that aid currently being received is being needlessly held up or
misdirected.


I would love to see NGO's freely operate in Cuba.
Remember what they did to MSF.

Cuba: MSF closes its missions on the island
In late 1999, Médecins Sans Frontières made the difficult decision to
discontinue its work in Cuba. Some MSF programs in Cuba were
successfully completed and handed over to the the Ministry of Health.
But excessive administrative control by Cuban authorities and related
problems with local supply channels made it difficult for the
organization to continue running other projects independently and
effectively, prompting the decision to withdraw. MSF closed its last
mission in Cuba in April 2000.


[snip]

The Cuban health authorities took over the MSF outreach program (it
was nothing more) and went on to establish its world-renowned AIDS/HIV
detection and treatment programs. Cuba's HIV infection rate is one
tenth of that in the US. They obviously knew what they were doing.



Countries without a standard cooperation
agreement with Cuba, are requested to send aid through neutral third
parties l

(snip)

thanks for admitting that their direct aid was refused.

No aid was refused.


There is no guarantee that they will not shift it to other countries
rather than accepting the Cuban ultimatum.

If they want to play politics with their aid like the US, that is up
to them, I guess. If they truly want to help the Cuban people, they
can send their aid through channels developed specifically for such
emergencies: the Red Cross and various UN aid agencies (WFP, FAO,
UNICEF, etc.)


The refusal of sate to state aid from political reasons has no basis
at all. Even your excuse of a "hostile nation" hardly applies to
Austria.
Cuba accepts aid from lots of countries (Barbados, T&T,...) with which
it has no agreements.

Prove it.


The "agreement" thing is no more than an excuse.

[snip]

You are just pissed off that agents of the US regime are unable to
exploit the current crisis to inflict even more harm on the Cuban
people, desperately hoping to succeed where decades of genocidal trade
sanctions have failed. Even you recently conceded that your beloved
embargo is, in the words of Amnesty International, "used to harm the
most vulnerable members of [Cuban] society." Whatever it takes, right,
Mr. Lobbyist?

See featured article, "Is the US embargo a form of genocide?" at my
website.

Dan
Visit my CUBA: Issues & Answers website at http://www.netcom.ca/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html
.