Operation USA responded quickly to the disaster by coordinating with regional partners in Haiti and Cuba to deliver water purification tablets, medical supplies to pediatric hospitals, and critically needed food and nutritional aid to children affected by the storms.

In the 12 years since Operation USA began directly providing humanitarian aid to Cuba’s main pediatric hospitals and its much-lauded international medical school, licenses have had to be obtained from both the US Department of Commerce and the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury. The shorthand name for this licensure is the “Trading With The Enemy Act” (aka the Export Administration Act).

Aid groups working in Cuba are hardly alone in facing US requirements for a license to donate agricultural products or medical supplies to Cuba’s main institutions. Think North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, immediate post-war (1975-1991) Vietnam and Cambodia, Reagan-era Nicaragua, etc. But the US Government, through the past 10 presidencies, has been particularly vicious towards Cuba and has sharply limited donating or selling even spare parts for Cuba’s pre-1959 US-made infrastructure or in allowing Cuban Americans to send home adequate amounts of cash remittances to family members.

So it is hardly surprising that George W. Bush, with brother Jeb serving as Florida’s Governor, would take a particularly hard-line position on travel, trade and aid to Cuba. This is so even as a majority in Congress—recently led by increasing numbers of farm state Republicans–has been pushing for a vastly more open relationship with Cuba.

Now, with Fidel Castro at or near retirement, would be the ideal time to change course even if it involved standing up to the ever-generous political donors among the hardline Cuban exile community. These rejectionists are from the Cuban diaspora which left Cuba between 1959 and 1980. Since then, however, most Cuban migrants have been principally economic migrants interested in reaching back to those left behind in Cuba. This group tends to be in favor of a more open and free relationship with The Island and it is fast becoming the majority voice, even in Miami.

Does Bush see or hear any of this? It is doubtful that he cares what anyone else thinks is good politics or even good national security policy.

Recently, the influx of new, hardline (and, in many cases, Cuban-American) hires at the Departments of State and Defense—which review Cuba export and travel licenses while they are being processed by the Departments of Commerce and Treasury–has made itself manifest in the rejection of a number of humanitarian licenses up for renewal. Last years’ license renewals banned most training of Cuban doctors and nurses by US aid groups on the pretext that these medical professionals would be made to work as forced labor in the hospitals and clinics of Venezuela to earn hard currency and oil for the Cuban government. This year has seen sharp cut backs or outright refusals of licenses (and visas to the US in the case of prominent Cubans). Very few cultural or educational exchanges are being licensed and nearly no visas allowing Cubans to attend professional meetings in the US are being approved.

Operation USA’s recently expired licenses contained provisions limiting the donation and shipment of many kinds of medical products—computers have to be of the pre-Pentium “486” or older variety; laboratory and radiology equipment is mostly prohibited; equipment must be used and at least 5 years old; medicines’ end use—not just “for children” but for which specific diseases they will be applied–has to be characterized in advance of licensing approvals. All of the above materials are targeted towards pediatric hospitals but Commerce Department officials are telling relief groups that they have “evidence that such items are being diverted to military or other inappropriate uses”. No precise source is ever provided to back up these charges and not one US relief group active in Cuba has experienced a diversion of its aid by the Cuban Government.

Currently, the Government Accountability Office of Congress (the GAO) and the Inspector General of the US State Department are investigating the misappropriation of $73 million in official funds from the State Department given willy-nilly to anti-Castro groups in Miami to purchase supplies to take to dissident groups in Cuba. The groups involved were provided Treasury and Commerce licenses on an expedited basis.

This would not amount to chopped liver if children were not dying as a result of Cuba’s and other embargoes imposed by the US over many years. In Iraq, one noteworthy study by Harvard University’s School of Public Health of the pre-2003 pre-US invasion period found that up to 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the trade and aid embargo by the US (and through the US, by the United Nations-imposed sanctions) in the aftermath of the first Gulf War.

The coming year’s Cuba policy out of Washington, D.C. will be a measure of whether or not our political leaders have learned anything at all from their previous failings.

[Richard M. Walden, is founder and president of Operation USA, a Los Angeles-based international relief and development agency, www.opusa.org].

This article can be found on the “truthdig” website, truthdig.com.

Jackson Browne Headlines Show For Hurricane Relief in Cuba, Haiti and the U.S. Gulf Coast
November 29 at the Santa Monica Civic

LOS ANGELES, CA, November 1, 2008–Jackson Browne, a long time supporter of Operation USA, announced today that Bonnie Rait, Joan Baez, Ry Cooder, Ben Harper and the Relentless 7 will be joining him for the one-night only Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert on Saturday, November 29 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, Ca. The concert is in response to the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which hit Cuba, Haiti and the U.S. Gulf Coast twice within three weeks in late August and early September, 2008. All three areas are in dire need of material and financial aid to help restore safety and provide appropriate healthcare. Recent storms including Hurricane Paloma, which was especially ravaging in Cuba, have made the situation even more dire.

Operation USA mounted a major relief effort in Cuba, Haiti and Texas immediately following the destructive hurricanes. First response initiatives included a shipment of electric lights and generators to Texas communities to restore power; a grant to Haiti to purchase desperately needed relief supplies, especially for water purification; plans for two million water purification tablets to be flown to Havana, Cuba; and, a scheduled sea shipment of medical supplies for Cuban hospitals. Operation USA has worked in Cuba under U.S. license for over 15 years, with a focus on children in medical need.

Proceeds from the November 29th concert will go help Operation USA to fund additional relief efforts tailored to meet local needs of families and health facilities in Cuba, Haiti and Texas.