U.S. offers to help Cuban victims of Gustav
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has offered to help Cuban victims of Hurricane Gustav by sending aid through relief organizations instead of the government of President Raul Castro, the State Department said on Friday.
Washington informed the Cuban government two days ago that it was prepared to provide the assistance, but had heard nothing back from Cuban officials, said State Department spokeswoman Heide Bronke.
She said the chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana had some $100,000 available to help Cubans affected by the storm that caused extensive damage on Saturday.
The Cubans had been told that the Americans were prepared to "work through appropriate non-governmental organizations to deliver relief as quickly and directly as possible to assist Cubans affected by Hurricane Gustav," Bronke said.
The United States also offered to send an assessment team to Cuba to determine the level of humanitarian need, she said.
In another development, Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, urged President George W. Bush to suspend for 90 days U.S. curbs on visits, remittances and gifts to people in Cuba.
In a letter to Bush, Berman, a California Democrat, said relaxing the rules to allow expanded family-to-family aid would be the most effective way to speed assistance to those upended by Gustav.
The State Department rejected the idea, saying there was room enough under existing regulations for a significant increase by humanitarian organizations or individuals licensed to send money and other assistance.
"We do not believe that at this time it is necessary to loosen the restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba to accomplish the objective of aiding the hurricane victims," the department said in a written reply to a reporter's question. "Non-governmental organizations on the ground in Cuba are already mobilizing to provide such assistance."
Cuba's state-run media on Thursday highlighted the arrival of Russian aid in the wake of the devastating storm, which former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said hit Cuba like a nuclear bomb and damaged or destroyed 100,000 houses. No deaths were reported.
Bronke said the U.S. Interests Section in Havana had sent a diplomatic note to Cuba's foreign ministry making the aid offer on Wednesday, and U.S. officials had also communicated it to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington.
She said the United States had offered similar assistance to Cuban victims of natural disasters in the past. Officially Washington shuns Cuba, having broken off diplomatic relations with Havana in 1961, two years after Fidel Castro seized power and made Cuba a Soviet ally.
Communications were restored with the opening of low-level missions called interests sections in the late 1970s, but a strict sanctions regime remains in place.
Bush, who tightened the trade and travel restrictions on Cuba, rejects easing them without a transition to democracy.
The State Department said that $100,000 in emergency U.S. funds had been released to help the Jamaican government in hurricane relief efforts, and a flight with relief for storm victims had been sent to Kingston on Thursday.
The same amount had been authorized in U.S. aid for Haiti, and U.S. Agency for International Development personnel were on the ground in both Jamaica and Haiti to assess damage and determine if there are additional needs, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.
The United States has also authorized $50,000 to support relief efforts in the Dominican Republic, Wood said.
(Editing by Anthony Boadle)
