RESPONSIBLE FOR HURRICANE?
An October 8 Associated Press dispatch from Miami casts a most revealing light on the mentality of the Cuban. counterrevolutionaries. The dispatch reads as follows:
"Guban exiles expressed hope today that Hurricane Flora would wreck. Prime Minister Fidel Castro's revolution. .
“Wrhey said the hurricane may accomplish what anti-Castro. saboteurs had been risking their lives to do -- ruin Cuba's principal crops and thus devastate her economy.
‘it Now. ‘is the time to strike because electric facilities will .be out for a good time, bridges are out, rails are washed out, and the only communication in eastern Cuba is by radio,! said the Rev. Germinal Rivas, of Junita Revolucionaria (JURE).
ay spokesman for another activist group, Commando L, said: ‘It is a pity we were not prepared for this occasion on a large scale.. Fidelts people might give a tot. of thought now as to whether it is still worthwhile backing him,"
The logic of this type of thinking is that the victory of the Revolution led by Fidel Castro can be ascribed to the balmy weather which Batista thoughtlessly arranged for.
Such balmy logic is not confined to the Miami "activists, " how= ever. The staid New York Times rubbed its hands editorially October LO as it castigated Castro for choosing this time to refuse to sign the | test-ban treaty, to reject a Brazilian proposal to make Latin America a zone free of nuclear weapons, and to "put on a glowing tribute to the Chinese Communists":
"These policy moves," continued the New York Times, "came as one of the most devastating natural calamities ever to hit Cuba -- Hurricane Flora =- destroyed crops, homes, bridges, railways and roads and flooded “Lands and villages. In Cubats most prosperous days such a disaster would have ruined the island!s economy for the next two or three years. Coming as it does after the drought of 1961-62 and the great economic mistakes and failures of the revolution, the blow was doubly damaging. Already, nappy Cuban exiles in Miami are saying, ‘now is the time to strike,t and expressing the hope that the hurricane will have blown the Castro. regime. as well as eastern Cuba, apart.
"This is the hardest test that the leader of the revolution has: yet faced -- and here is he, making it harder. The United States, despite what it thinks of the Castro. regime, wants to help the victims of the hurricane, but it is difficult to help someone who is kicking you in the shins, calling you names and showing no disposition to seek elp. .
"In the case of Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution, predictions ~are to:be avoided. All his toughness, shrewdness and resourcefulness
will now be needed to get his Government and his revolution out. of this predicament."
Hurricane Flora was, indeed, the worst Caribbean storm in the history of the weather department. It blew for five days solid, the. wind reaching 140 miles an hour,
In Haiti 2, 500 were. reported dead and another 2,500 missing, In Cuba, said Radio Havana, “two entire villages have disappeared, washed, away. by the. floodwaters, and there is fear that 4,000 students and workers have perished,.'
According to the same report, Cuba lost nearly all its coffee crop, about half its sugar crop, and almost all its other crops. That this is not exaggerated can be judged from the opinion of the Miami Weather Bureau that Flora left the worst hurricane devastation in Haiti and Cuba "since the time Columbus discovered the New World,"
The counterrevolutionaries, from the foulest cutthroats in the hangouts of Miami to the most cultured wielders of the poison pen in the editorial offices of the New York Times, are gloating over this natural disaster, thinking that it Wilt surely lead the Cuban people to say, "We must get rid of Castro!"
But as they tackle this new burden under Castrots leadership, the Cuban people are much more likely to conclude, "Thank god that on top -of a hurricane we don't have a 2 Batistat" . ,