N E W S

Havana. September 2, 2005

Katrina threatens to land Bush government in crisis
The people who couldn’t or didn’t want to leave New Orleans are overwhelmingly poor and black

AFTER lashing four states and devastating New Orleans, Katrina is seriously threatening the White House given that the natural disaster is becoming a political crisis.

The tragedy being experienced by those affected in New Orleans is calling into question not only the ineptitude of the federal government to take preventative measures and decisions to accelerate aid to those needing it, but has also prompted harsh statements of a political and social nature.

A deluge of angry criticism by the Black Caucus in Congress and African-American civil rights organizations, plus the main media, has fallen on the Bush administration, particularly that of the desperate and infuriated attack on the president and federal authorities by the mayor of new Orleans, Ray Nagin.

Nagin came across as explosive in terms of accusing federal and state government of not having a clue as to the garvity of the crisis and in demanding resources. "I am sorry, but I am pissed," said the mayor in a radio interview , in which he stated his frustration at not being able to count on the nedessary resources.

Making a desperate call he stated that it was a national disaster and that thousands of soldiers were needed, now. Let them get their act together and come to New Orleans. He added: "We authorized $8 billion for Iraq without even thinking about it; after September 11 we gave the president unprecented powers to take care of New York and other places, and now they want to tell me that a place where most of our oil comes from, a place where thousands of people are probably dead and thousands more dying every day, that we can’t figure out a way to authorize the resources needed. Please, I don’t know who has the problem, whether it’s the governor or the president but somebody has to wise up."

Even Michael Brown, the federal director of Emergency Preparedness, admitted that need to improve evacuation plans and refugee supplies in the future. Asked if the lack of National Guard troops was due to them being in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said that three days before Katrina touched land, 10,000 troops had been sent to the Gulf Coast.

Nor has Bush escaped harsh criticism from African.American leaders and congress members meeting at the Washington Press Club. CNN is repeating time and time again that statement from Jesse Jackson Jr. "We are talking of years and years of devastation in this region and thus we are not just taking about an aid fund. As Americans we have an obligation to get these people out of the region as soon as possible to avoid malaria, tuberculosis and other outbreaks of disease. The US Congree has to take the lead. And the president, who has just celebrated an unprecedented record of presidential vacations, must work with the legislative to reconstruct the country."

Another congress member said that the people are waiting, "they are not immigrants, they are Americans" and asked: "with a leadership in this nation that wants to take justice to the world, what is happening to freedom and justice in the United States? In response to a question from a journalist as to if she thought that the delay in aid was a kind of genocide of the black population, she said that she was not converting the tragedy into a racial problem, but asking for them to take care of people, of whatever skin color, because they are all people. "It is not a racial issue, but about helping people who are suffering."

TRAPPED WITHOUT HELP

The AP and Reuters agencies describe the desperation and frustration of those affected, as well as the chaos ruling in New Orleans. "Anger is growing in the ruined city, with thousands of affected people steadily more hungry, desperate and tired of waiting for buses to evacuate them. "We are here in the open air like animals. We don’t have any help," said Reverend Isaac Clarke, aged 68, outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses are lying in the street. Some of those evacuated complained that they were left there and not given anything: no food, no water and no medicines.

Between 15,000 and 20,000 peoples who took refuge in the convention center to await the arrival of buses were getting more and more angry and frustrated at what appeared to be a situation that could turn into something worse. In the hope of calming them, the mayor gave them permission to cross a bridge on the western margin of the city, which was not flooded, to seek help.

At least seven corpses were scattered outside and hungry, tired and desperate people broke down the steel doors to a service area for food and started to pull out water and juice and anything that they could. "I wouldn’t treat my dog like this," stated Daniel Edwards, aged 47, as he pointed to a dead woman in a wheelchair, covered by a sheet and surrounded by hungry, crying babies. "I buried my dog," he said. And he added: "You can do anything for other countries, but you can’t do anything here for your own people. You can go abroad with the soldiers, but you can’t bring them here."

The Superdome, where some 25,000 evacuees were transferred in buses to the Houston Astrodome, was plunged in chaos. There were also corpses, irate people and thousands crowded onto the main outside esplanade, a sea of tense, angry people squashed shoulder to shoulder against barricades heavily controlled by armed National Guard troops. And some disturbances broke out. A garbage removal ramp in the stadium was on fire, but a National Guard commander said that that didn’t affect the evacuation. People were shouting "Help! Help!" while journalists and cameraman moved around nearby. The first 500 buses loaded with people who were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome arrived early Thursday at their new shelter: another sports stadium, the Houston Astrodome, located 560 kilometers (350 miles) from where they were. To make the panorama even more desolate, there were tons of rotten chicken and shrimps scattered about, torn from their containers in a dock by the wind and tossed up by the water all over the pitch.

Spanish Deputy Lourdes Muñoz of the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC, who has been sheltering in the New Orleans Convention Center for two days with her family, told EFE that the situation is "desperate and chaotic… we can’t hold out for mucho longer here, that is if we survive." "We have been abandoned here, without security, without food or water. They are already killing and kidnapping people… people are saying: ‘Are we going to die here? Why have we been brought here?" She state "for now there is no adequate response from the American government."

She stressed that the majority of the "blockaded" people in the building are families who "are surviving" and not pillaging bands.

Robert Lewis was left marooned by water in his house in downtown New Orleans, where he and some others thought to ride out Hurricane Katrina. "There were bodies floating outside my door," he told journalists on Thursday night, describing how he and other men in his neighborhood put children on their shoulders and walked 3.2 kilometers through flooded streets before being rescued by a helicopter.

He was taken to the Superdome, the New Orleans covered football stadium which served as a refuge for 23,000 people affected by Katrina.

Later on, the authorities ordered their evacuation as living conditions worsened due to lack of light, scarcity of water and overflowing toilets. Some 4,000 people had arrived at Houston on Thursday night.

The situation in the Superdome, said Lewis, was "extremely chaotic and disorganized. It was a total disaster… Basically there was nothing. They had to get people out of there."

Keith Brooks, who left the Superdome two days after arriving there, said that "it was no place for a dog." Food was "strewn about." Brooks recalled how the officials threw in bottles of water for people to catch, how elderly people were ignored and how a young girl of 14 was raped. The 40-year-old garbage collector said that he was planning to work in Houston and would never go back to New Orleans, where he had lived all his life.

Lenwyn Hollins waited out the storm in his home with his wife and three kids because "it was like an insult to us" to go to the Superdome. "I have lost all confidence in New Orleans."

Henry Mackels of Chalmette, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans, who stayed with his wife and son and hundreds of others in a local college, told journalists at the Astrodome that the officials in the refuge "let us down totally."

The floors were covered with dog and cat mess and there was nothing to drink or eat. "They let us go hungry." He said that he and other men had to raid storehouses and stores for food and water to feed hundreds in the school. There were people fainting left and right. We had to do it (raid). There was no choice," he added.

However, the government response is shocking: the Pentagon announced the dispatch to New Orleans of 1,400 military police, while 300 soldiers brought from Iraq reached the city with the order to "shoot to kill" raiders, as confirmed by the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco: "they have the authority to fire on bandits."

President George W. Bush, meanwhile, toured the devastated area on Friday, the White House announced, and had asked his father and ex-president Bill Clinton to head up a private campaign to collect funds for the victims.

Mayor Nagin also criticized the president for observing the damage from the air, by overflying the region on Wednesday en route to Washington after cutting his prolonged vacation by two days, but on Friday he finally decided to come down and tour some of the areas affected by the hurricane. For its part, Congress shortened its traditional recess and approved $10.5 billion in relief.

A number of countries including its traditional allies and other less powerful countries are making gestures of effective cooperation. From offers of boats and planes, food supplies or civil protection personnel to a modest but highly symbolical donation of $25,000 from Sri Lanka, the nation devastated by a tsunami last December; the whole world is trying to help. The offers of aid arrived after the United States, the country who is putting up the most money, stated that it is open to external aid, despite not having made a formal request as such.