c. 1996 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS)-A multimillion-dollar shipment of insulin and antibiotics to stock the empty shelves of Cuban hospitals stands waiting in a Miami warehouse. When the supplies will arrive is anybody’s guess, now that the Clinton administration has tightened the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba and banned all direct charter flights to the island.
But the Rev. Kenneth Vavrina is determined his mission of mercy will not be deterred in the fallout from the downing by Cuban MIGs Saturday (Feb. 24) of two civilian aircraft piloted by Cuban-American activists.”If we can’t ship the supplies by air, we’ll ship them by sea. We’ll get them there any way we can,”said Vavrina, an official of the New York-based Catholic Medical Mission Board. The group, working in conjunction with Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services, has transported more than $8 million in medical supplies to Cuba since 1993.
Vavrina probably won’t have to ship his medicines to Havana by sea. But the new restrictions mean it will likely take more time and money for private charities to deliver humanitarian aid to Cuba, whose poorest citizens, Vavrina said, often bear the brunt of the tense relations between the United States and Cuba.
Though Clinton banned direct charter flights to Cuba in retaliation for Saturday’s incident, a Treasury Department spokesman said Tuesday (Feb. 27)”it will be business as usual for humanitarian aid.”As long as relief agencies transport their supplies through a third country, the spokesman said, their efforts will be unimpeded.
Business has been anything but usual for church-run charities trying to penetrate the U.S.-led embargo, which for 30 years has sought to isolate the government of Fidel Castro. Just as their task began to get easier when the Clinton administration eased some restrictions against Cuba last October, the downing of the two planes has again made it more difficult.
Still, charities remain hopeful that the uproar over the Feb. 24 incident will be a temporary setback to their work.”We do not think this latest incident will restrict our ability to carry out our humanitarian assistance agenda,”said Christine Tucker, Latin America expert for Catholic Relief Services. CRS is the largest American church-based charity active in Cuba. The American Friends Service Committee, the Southern Baptist Convention and the ecumenical Pastors for Peace also deliver humanitarian aid.
Senate Majority Leader and Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole has criticized Clinton’s initial easing of restrictions in October. And a measure calling for new economic sanctions against Cuba, introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., once thought to have a poor chance at passage, now is gaining support. “The challenge now, for everyone, is to separate out what are the political issues that have changed and will change between the U.S. and Cuba and what are the humanitarian issues that don’t change,”Tucker said.”We need to keep them separate.” Though humanitarian aid has routinely flowed to Cuba from the international community for decades, U.S. charities did not become involved until 1993.
As the Cold War ended and aid from the former Soviet Union dried up, the economic climate of Cuba worsened. A tropical storm devastated the island, followed by the outbreak of a neuro-optical disease that baffled physicians and raised fears of an epidemic that would sweep through the Caribbean, Tucker said.
Working with the Catholic Medical Mission Board, Catholic Relief Services began shipping insulin and antibiotics-medical supplies that are not manufactured in Cuba.
The task became easier in October, when the Clinton administration eased travel, transport and communications restrictions.
Working with Caritas Cuba, a charity affiliated with the Catholic Church, CRS distributed the medicines to government hospitals throughout Cuba and has gradually expanded the medical program to include food, clothing and other assistance.
Now, mounting pressure on Congress to retaliate against the Castro government by imposing more sanctions, Tucker said, could threaten her agency’s plans for additional developmental aid in Cuba, such as a plan to provide potable water, agricultural projects and programs promoting small businesses.
But as the Catholic Medical Mission Board’s Vavrina sees it, increased sanctions will only make more difficult the missionary’s task of binding up the wounds of ordinary people in Cuba-the ones who are most vulnerable in the escalating war of words and economic sanctions.”The destruction of these two planes comes at a particularly bad time,”he said.”It causes politicians to take a harder stance, it causes lots of rhetoric to be flung in all directions. We all need to be calm, to be gentle, to not rock the boat. We’re going to overcome this thing by being peaceful. We have to be willing to forgive.”
MJP END CONNELL
