Vol. 71/No. 44      November 26, 2007

The consequences of the storm and flooding are compounded by the social conditions resulting from the imperialist domination of those countries, such as inadequate health care and lack of infrastructure to deal with a storm of this magnitude.

By contrast, in Cuba only one person died as a result of the flooding, Reuters reported, despite massive storm damage in eastern Granma province. About 68,000 people were evacuated into well-stocked government shelters in that country. Volunteers have taken preventive measures to avoid the spread of disease in areas where flooding killed livestock.

Of the nearly 67,000 people displaced in the Dominican Republic, only 23,000 are in shelters. According to a November 4 UN report, the shelters lack food and other relief supplies. Hospitals are at capacity.

A week after the rains stopped, 137 Dominican communities remain isolated. Food shortages and a subsequent rise in prices are expected as a result of crop destruction. Water contamination stemming from dead animals and the collapse of sewage systems raises the likelihood of a rapid spread of disease. Forty percent of the country’s water supply was damaged.

In Haiti, rains from Noel compounded flooding that has wrecked much of the country since September. Many shelters lack drinking water, sanitary conditions, and basic health services. Haiti is particularly vulnerable to flooding and mudslides because of extensive deforestation, caused by the fact that, without access to electricity, many rural toilers depend on charcoal made from chopping down trees.

Residents of the working-class area of Cité Soleil outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, blocked roads and burned tires November 5 demanding aid. Intolerable conditions at shelters were also reported in Mexico, where nearly two-thirds of the state of Tabasco was under water a week after the rains stopped. Some 900 people crowded into a school in Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco, for shelter.

“The authorities sent us only enough food for 300 people,” shelter supervisor Hortensia Carmona told the local newspaper Hoy. “There is no medicine. It’s terrible.”

In the neighboring state of Chiapas, a mudslide buried the entire village of San Juan Grijalva November 5. Altogether, 19 people are reported dead and one million people affected by the storm in southern Mexico.

Washington and other imperialist powers have given minimal aid. U.S. officials pledged $300,000 in emergency assistance to Mexico, and sent National Guard airplanes and crews to the Dominican Republic. Ottawa promised $553,000 for Haiti.

The Venezuelan government donated 500 prefabricated houses, diesel fuel, and three planeloads of food and medicine.

Despite the economic toll of the flooding in Cuba, the revolutionary government there is sending 50 doctors to Tabasco. About 600 Cuban volunteer doctors are already serving in Haiti, and dozens in the Dominican Republic. In addition, 305 Haitians have been trained as doctors free of charge in Cuba, and another 240 are in their final year of medical school there.  
 
 
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