FACING THE IMMINENT ARRIVAL OF HURRICANE IVAN
More discipline than ever to preserve human lives
• Fidel instructs the population on TV Roundtable program
JOSE A. DE LA OSA—Granma daily staff writer—
SPEAKING a few hours before a hurricane of serious intensity reaches our
country, President Fidel Castro called on the population to demonstrate more
discipline than ever before in order to preserve life and health, and to follow
to the foot of the letter directions from the Civil Defense so as to avoid loss
of human life, given that everything else can be reconstructed.
"What cannot be restored are human lives," he emphasized, "but with our energy
we will confront and resolve the adversities." He also talked of the need to
protect storehouses, food reserves and school equipment, confirming that the
island is prepared and nobody should be disheartened whatever the hurricane
destroys.
Fidel was participating yesterday in the third TV Roundtable focusing on t
he exceptional education program of the Revolution.
Commenting on the characteristics of Hurricane Ivan, at 9:30 p.m. yesterday
Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale of five, the Cuban president compared it
with the effects of an atomic attack given its ample radius of material
destruction. But after it has passed, he assured, a whole people will be
working on reconstruction.
"We are better prepared than anyone to confront this atmospheric phenomenon, as
would be the case in a war," he affirmed. "For that reason, the key at this
point is discipline and strict fulfillment of Civil Defense instructions,
because we have to imagine things that have never been seen."
He reiterated that the most important thing is to preserve human lives and
stated that there are sufficient reserves to confront a hurricane like this
one, or even a military aggression.
He observed that those responsible for intensifying the economic blockade of
Cuba will be very happy, given they are unable to
destroy the Revolution, so "roll on a cyclone," and the bigger the better in order to make
the educational
experience of the Revolution to "disappear from the map."
The Cuban leader stressed that he was announcing in advance that no aid will be
accepted from those unleashing cruel economic warfare on our country. "Let them
save themselves the hypocrisy of offering aid to Cuba," he stated.
"We have confidence in the peoples," he added, "that they will recognize the
barbarities being committed by our enemies. And so, blockaded and with all the
new measures against our country, we are going to defend and preserve life,
health and food, even if innumerable banana plantations are swept away.
He recalled that after the last cyclone hit Cuba the U.S. government offered the
ridiculous sum of $50,000 of humanitarian aid. "And we didn’t accept it. The
only thing we can allow is a total end to the blockade and the economic
aggression of our country! We are going to demonstrate that we are capable of resisting
this hurricane as well, and others if they arrive, and how we can
reconstruct the country with our own resources."