By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Sep 10 1998 (IPS)

The Cuban government announced Thursday that it would reject World Food Programme (WFP) aid for drought victims if the US contribution to the overall amount was identified.

The employment of aid coming from Washington would be governed by US laws on humanitarian aid to Cuba, which stipulate that the socialist government of Fidel Castro must play no part in its distribution.

Ministry of Foreign Relations spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez said Thursday that his country was grateful for the WFP assistance received thus far, but added that it would not be able to accept conditioned aid from identified donors.

“While Cuba accepts the overall assistance, it cannot accept aid of which one part is clearly identified,” Gonzalez stressed at his weekly meeting with the accredited foreign press in Havana.

The United States is considering the possibility of providing a large part of the more than 20 million dollars that the UN agency aims to raise for an emergency aid programme for Cuba.

WFP representative in Cuba German Valdivia announced Tuesday that the agency had approved a 27 million dollar emergency programme to provide assistance to more than 615,000 victims of drought in Cuba.

The programme is to benefit over 90,700 pregnant women, nursing mothers, children under five and elderly through the public health sector, as well as close to 525,00 primary and secondary school children, including boarding school pupils and day-school children who eat lunch at school.

Valdivia said the Castro administration would provide slightly more than six million dollars as well as all distribution mechanisms.

“Cuba is profoundly grateful to the WFP for its aid, which up to now has amounted to 160 million dollars in regular projects and 11.5 million dollars in emergency operations,” said Ministry of Foreign Relations spokesman Gonzalez.

For the past seven months, five eastern provinces of Cuba – Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguin, Guantanamo and Las Tunas – have been suffering a severe drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon. A UN mission to the area concluded in July that if the low rainfall persisted until late September, losses would amount to 267 million dollars.

The emergency aid will amount to less than 10 percent of projected crop and livestock losses.

Valdivia said the gravity of the situation would become clear over the next few months, when the principle crops were harvested. Up to now, livestock losses are estimated at eight million dollars, while reservoirs of drinking water in the five drought- stricken provinces are less than half full.

The UN mission only assessed possible food shortages. It did not evaluate the drought’s impact on important export sectors like sugar, tobacco, coffee and fishing.

According to a WFP document released last week in Havana, “the failure to plant and the significant loss of harvests in the March to August 1998 period, Cuba’s most important growing season, is an irreversible development.”

The WFP urged governments, civil society and business to contribute to the emergency aid programme. “If the international community fails to respond to this call, the most vulnerable population groups in Cuba will suffer from malnutrition and will be weakened and prone to illness,” WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertine said upon issuing the call last Wednesday.

The drought’s impact on agriculture is compounded by the crisis that has gripped all sectors of Cuba’s economy since 1990, including food production for a population of more than 11 million.

Official Cuban sources say per capita consumption rose from 2,552 to 2,953 kilo-calories and from 66 to 79 grams of protein from 1965 to 1988 – figures that placed the country in a privileged position in Latin America.

But by 1993, consumption had plunged to 1,863 kilo-calories and 46 grams of protein, far below the recommended minimum of 2,400 kilo-calories and 72 grams.

The incipient economic recovery seen in the past few years and the opening of farmers markets where prices are governed by the laws of supply and demand have helped alleviate the food crisis, and consumption rose to 2,176 kilo-calories and 54.3 grams of protein last year.

But experts say the drought could lead to a new drop in consumption.

Ministry of Foreign Relations spokesman Gonzalez said the government appreciated the aid from individuals and non- governmental organisations, but underlined that it came “far from mitigating the effects” of Washington’s nearly four decades-long economic blockade against Cuba.

Gonzalez termed humanitarian aid from Washington “hypocritical” and “unacceptable.”

“An act of real humanity would be to lift the embargo,” he said. “If Cuba were left in peace” and all unilateral sanctions were removed, there would be no need for talk about humanitarian aid, he maintained.

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