A testament to socialist planning
Cuba leads world in managing disasters
By Fred Goldstein
The utter failure of the imperialists and the
region's capitalist governments to warn the people of the Indian Ocean about the
tsunami and to mitigate the chaos that reigned both during and after the
devastation brings into bold relief the monumental accomplishments of socialist
Cuba in the sphere of disaster management.
The capitalist propaganda
machine has focused on the suffering of the people victimized by this disaster
and has opened up a false debate over whether the tsunami was an act of god or
an act of nature. The message is that, either way, this is fate and nothing
could really be done to change things. Missing from the debate is the crucial
question of how the catastrophic effects of this disaster could have been
avoided.
The record of the Cuban government in preparing its population
for hurricanes and other natural disasters so as to minimize the loss of human
life gives the lie to religious mysticism and fatalistic thinking. It also
stands as a practical example of how to reduce the needless loss of
life.
Cuba has been cited by the United Nations, the International
Federation of the Red Cross, the Red Crescent Society and other agencies and
authorities who deal with the effects of natural disasters as the world model in
disaster management, not only for underdeveloped countries but for all
countries. Massive, humane evacuations of hundreds of thousands of people have
been carried out within hours during hurricanes that reached high levels.
In 2001, when Hurricane Michelle, a level-4 storm, hit with sustained
125-mile-per-hour winds and widespread floods, more than 700,000 people were
evacuated. Only five Cubans lost their lives in the storm, which killed 20
people in Central America.
More dead in California than
Cuba
It is noteworthy that prolonged rains in California have already
killed almost twice as many people in a two-week period as the 16 who died in
six major hurricanes in Cuba between 1996 and 2002. The Cuban method of
education, preparation, warning and organized mass intervention during natural
disasters is sorely missed right now in California.
In California, many
people were killed by a mud slide in La Conchita after two weeks of rain. The
same spot had suffered a similar mud slide 10 years ago. If the Cuban method had
been applied in California, there would have been no loss of life.
An
analysis of the Cuban method by Oxfam, a prestigious bourgeois British human
itarian organization that works in a variety of areas, led to the publication of
a 68-page study in 2004 entitled, "Weathering the Storm: Lessons in Risk Reduc
tion from Cuba."(oxfamamerica.org) This study praised the effectiveness of the
Cuban system of centralized, planned organization based on mass participation
that has saved many lives during natural disasters.
"Cuba is unusual in
that its socio-economic development model and its disaster response policies
combine to substantially reduce its population's vulnerability to hazards. Over
the past 40 years, Cuba's socialist government has emphasized social and
economic development, prioritizing an equitable distribution of resources,
universal access to social services, and a narrower urban-rural development
gap," says the report.
"Cubans are highly educated, with a strongly
developed sense of solidarity and social cohesion, extensive experience in mobi
lization and highly organized through mass organizations, professional groups
and political structures."
Cuba has a comprehensive National Civil Defense
system which, the report says, "is as much a concept of organization as it is a
system of measures and procedures." Its work is based on a national plan,
formulated both from above and at the grass roots level, which relies on mass
organizations such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR),
the Cuban Women's Federation, student groups, trade unions and the Association
of Small Producers.
"In addition to specific assets for work on
disasters," continues the report, "there is a political commitment at all levels
of gov ernment to allocate all resources at hand for the preservation of life in
emergencies. This allows the Cubans to make use of any and all available
resources, such as using local schools as evacuation shelters, securing boats
and buses for evacuation purposes, or tapping the ham radio association as a
communications network." All other aspects of preparation are "secondary to the
basic commitment of saving lives."
Detailed planning at all
levels
The national plan for disaster preparedness is refined and
worked on every year, from the highest levels to the neighborhoods and block
associations. The report carried the results of numerous interviews which
revealed the results of detailed planning, organization and
education.
"Regardless of their role, everyone was clearly aware of what
measures and what procedures they needed to follow in case of a hurricane. They
knew the stages of emergency warning, where to get information, how to secure
their house, and where they would go for shelter if they needed to evacuate. A
belief that the government would prioritize people's safety prevailed. The Cuban
population clearly has developed a 'culture of safety.'"
Jose Castro,
secretary of the Commis sion of Evacuation and Students in the Civil Defense of
Cienfuegos, told Oxfam that "Any child in school can give you an explanation:
how you prepare, what you do. Students, they know what you do ... how to gather
things in the house and put them away ... shut off the water and electricity.
All students, workers, campesinos get this training."
Basic to
preparedness is what is called "com munity risk mapping." In fact, according
to
Oxfam, "it is the meticulous, ongoing risk mapping at the community level
by community members that functions as the mortar in Cuba's wall of risk
reduction."
A discussion with a representative of the Cuban Women's
Federation in the district of Havana illustrated this point: "I am responsible
for this part of the neighborhood. ... If a hurricane hits, I know that inside
one multi-family unit is an old woman in a wheelchair, who is going to need help
to leave. I have 11 single mothers on second and third floors of apartment
buildings with children under two who will need more support to evacuate and
special needs in the shelters. I have two pregnant women, one on that block and
one on this one, who will need special attention."
Each year the plan is
updated to include new information and an evaluation of past experience.
"Beginning at the CDR level," said Jose Castro, "authorities update the plan in
their neighborhood. The CDR members write down the houses that may be vulnerable
in their census, including the name of the family and number of children. They
note who goes where during an evacuation, who will need extra help, etc." The
neighborhood plan then goes up to the municipal, provincial and national level
to be integrated into the national plan.
All public officials
responsible for safety
Unlike in the United States, all public
officials are charged with dealing with emergencies. "By law," says the report,
"all heads of provincial and municipal governments are the provincial and
municipal Civil Defense directors in charge of organizing, coordinating and
monitoring all the work related to prevention, mitigation, emergency response
and reconstruction in their area. ... This creates both a centralized
decision-making process, which is key for emergency situations, alongside a
decentralized implementation process, providing agility and adaptation equally
necessary for effective emergency preparedness and response.
"In practice,
the head of the Civil Defense in any given province or municipality is someone
closely familiar with how government works in that province. It also means that
the local groups are taking orders from someone familiar to them, not a stranger
brought for the duration of the emergency. In the event of an emergency all
heads of work places, hospitals, schools or businesses assume their respon
sibilities to direct their staff in carrying out civil defense
measures."
All the organizational structures are mobilized to alert the
population as a hurricane approaches. Meetings are called, plans reviewed,
command centers are org anized. "At the community level, the CDRs, mass
organizations, family doctors, school directors, and heads of institutions"
review emergency plans and check evacuation procedures, destinations and
supplies.
In the evacuation phase: "If a person's house has a roof of
tile, fiber-cement or thatch, they must move to a house of poured concrete. If
those options have already been assigned in the neighborhood, the family is
assigned to a group shelter and transport provided. Every thing from cars to
trucks to horse carts is mobilized for transport by the heads of the civil
defense ... In order to evacuate people in high-risk areas, all necessary means
of transport, such as helicopters and boats, are put at the service of Civil
Defense rescue teams for this purpose.
"In Cuba," continues the report,
"structures that run everyday life are the structures also used for implementing
civil defense measures."
In other words, the revolutionary organization of
the mass of workers and peasants in a socialist society puts the interests of
the people first in all spheres of life; it naturally becomes the general
framework within which it is possible to prepare effectively for natural
disasters and minimize the loss of life.
All despite U.S.
blockade
Cuba is a relatively poor country, underdeveloped by
centuries of Spanish colonialism, 60 years of U.S. imperialist control, and
decades of a vicious economic blockade. Yet, it has surpassed the richest and
most developed country in the world in the sphere of natural disaster
management.
Had India, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and other countries
in the Indian Ocean region had socialist regimes that put the interests of the
people at the forefront, day-in, day-out, as in socialist Cuba, they would have
seized upon the scientific and technological technology to detect tsunamis that
is already deployed in the Pacific Ocean and collectively either purchased or
developed it themselves.
The greatest loss of life during the tsunami was
in Banda Aceh in northern Sumatra, nearest the site of the undersea earthquake
that triggered the waves. Capitalist television networks have recently carried
footage of amateur video showing the tsunami hitting Banda Aceh. But first you
saw people cleaning up from the earthquake, slowly and methodically for 25
minutes, completely oblivious of what was to follow--despite definite danger
signs, like the sea receding.
An organized, educated, prepared population
with the government fully behind it could have evacuated thousands of people,
even at the site closest to the epicenter of the tsunami. Evacuation to safety
in most areas involved moving people only a relatively short distance from the
coast. This holds in even greater measure for the high-casualty areas further
from the quake, such as Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and of course West Africa.
Tsunamis are not at all unknown in the Indian Ocean region. There have
been three in Indonesia alone in the last 12 years.
A socialist government
such as exists in Cuba would have been alert to all the warn ings coming from
the scientific community about the vulnerability of the region to tsunamis. And
of course the population would have been thoroughly trained and organized to
deal with typhoons and other natural disasters, so it would have had the means
in place to deal with a tsunami.
Cuba, poor as it is, has worked virtual
miracles of public safety despite all the obstacles put in its way by the
blockade and the undying hostility of U.S. administrations for over four
decades. Its struggle to overcome the effects of hurricanes and natural
disasters by integrating its disaster mitigation work within the general
framework of socialist planning and organization, despite its extreme material
limitations, shows that in the natural world humanity can take increasing
control over its destiny. But Cuba laid the groundwork by first expelling
imperialism, overturning capitalism and taking control over the means of
production and the resources of society so it could organize them to serve human
need and not profit--that is, by carrying out the socialist revolution.
Reprinted from the Jan. 20, 2005, issue of Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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