Fidel Castro Offers to Send 1,100 Cuban Doctors to Help With
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2005 9:08 am
Fidel Castro Offers to Send 1,100 Cuban Doctors to Help With US Hurricane Relief Efforts
Source: Associated Press
September 2, 2005 Author: By Anita Snow Associated Press Writer
HAVANA (AP) - President Fidel Castro announced in a live television broadcast Friday that he had just issued a second offer to the United States to send 1,100 Cuban doctors to help care for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"These personnel have international experience and the language skills necessary to attend to patients," Castro said on state television. He said the first 100 doctors have been equipped with backpacks filled with medicine and first aid supplies and are ready to travel as soon as Friday night to Texas, where many of the hurricane victims have been evacuated.
"We are offering life, to save 10, 100, 1,000," said Castro.
The Cuban leader said his government was hoping for a rapid response, "hopefully immediately so as not to lose another minute."
Castro said a diplomatic note containing the offer was sent late Friday afternoon to the U.S. Interests Section, the American mission here, and was the second such offer of its kind made this week.
Castro said the first offer of Cuban doctors for hurricane relief efforts was made during a meeting with Cuban foreign ministry and U.S. officials in Havana on Tuesday, days before the extent of the hurricane's catastrophic damage was known.
At the time, American officials had asked Cuban authorities not to publicize their offer of aid, said Castro.
"(American) authorities are going through a difficult time, we are not asking for anything," said Castro, whose country has not had diplomatic relations with the United States in more than four decades. "We're not criticizing anyone."
But Castro indicated the deepening of the human suffering in New Orleans and other U.S. Gulf Coast cities had compelled him to repeat the offer.
Currently, there are tens of thousands of Cuban doctors working on goodwill missions in developing nations, especially in Venezuela and Haiti, as well as in Africa.
Cuban lawmakers on Thursday held a minute of silence Thursday for Hurricane Katrina victims and expressed solidarity with the mostly impoverished black and Hispanic Americans affected by the devastating storm.
Castro was among more than 500 members of the National Assembly who stood silently at the start of a regular session to remember the hundreds believed to have died this week when Katrina ravaged New Orleans, Louisiana, and other U.S. coastal communities on the Gulf of Mexico.
"This news causes pain and sadness for the Cuban people," said a resolution lawmakers unanimously approved. "In their name, we wish to express our profound solidarity with the people of the United States, state and local authorities and the victims of this catastrophe.
"The entire world should feel this tragedy as if it were their own," it concluded.
Cuba, set in the middle of the western Caribbean sea just southeast of the Gulf of Mexico, is battered by hurricanes annually.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBIUB545DE.html
Source: Associated Press
September 2, 2005 Author: By Anita Snow Associated Press Writer
HAVANA (AP) - President Fidel Castro announced in a live television broadcast Friday that he had just issued a second offer to the United States to send 1,100 Cuban doctors to help care for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"These personnel have international experience and the language skills necessary to attend to patients," Castro said on state television. He said the first 100 doctors have been equipped with backpacks filled with medicine and first aid supplies and are ready to travel as soon as Friday night to Texas, where many of the hurricane victims have been evacuated.
"We are offering life, to save 10, 100, 1,000," said Castro.
The Cuban leader said his government was hoping for a rapid response, "hopefully immediately so as not to lose another minute."
Castro said a diplomatic note containing the offer was sent late Friday afternoon to the U.S. Interests Section, the American mission here, and was the second such offer of its kind made this week.
Castro said the first offer of Cuban doctors for hurricane relief efforts was made during a meeting with Cuban foreign ministry and U.S. officials in Havana on Tuesday, days before the extent of the hurricane's catastrophic damage was known.
At the time, American officials had asked Cuban authorities not to publicize their offer of aid, said Castro.
"(American) authorities are going through a difficult time, we are not asking for anything," said Castro, whose country has not had diplomatic relations with the United States in more than four decades. "We're not criticizing anyone."
But Castro indicated the deepening of the human suffering in New Orleans and other U.S. Gulf Coast cities had compelled him to repeat the offer.
Currently, there are tens of thousands of Cuban doctors working on goodwill missions in developing nations, especially in Venezuela and Haiti, as well as in Africa.
Cuban lawmakers on Thursday held a minute of silence Thursday for Hurricane Katrina victims and expressed solidarity with the mostly impoverished black and Hispanic Americans affected by the devastating storm.
Castro was among more than 500 members of the National Assembly who stood silently at the start of a regular session to remember the hundreds believed to have died this week when Katrina ravaged New Orleans, Louisiana, and other U.S. coastal communities on the Gulf of Mexico.
"This news causes pain and sadness for the Cuban people," said a resolution lawmakers unanimously approved. "In their name, we wish to express our profound solidarity with the people of the United States, state and local authorities and the victims of this catastrophe.
"The entire world should feel this tragedy as if it were their own," it concluded.
Cuba, set in the middle of the western Caribbean sea just southeast of the Gulf of Mexico, is battered by hurricanes annually.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBIUB545DE.html