Madam, - Laura Egar (December 24th) asks whether Dervla Murphy (December 20th) would "like to go to Cuba to better enjoy its medical service while struggling to survive on meagre rations and minute monthly wages?" Ms Egar also offers that view that Cuba is "crippled by communism". Perhaps it is. Alternatively, it is plausible that Cuba is crippled by an illegal, immoral and vindictive trade blockade imposed by its near neighbour the US, the only remaining world "superpower".
I welcome the occasional debate and discussion of Cuban matters in these pages. In this regard it is vital that the cause and impact of this blockade on the Cuban economy be considered. The blockade was imposed by President John F. Kennedy as a result of the Cuban missile crisis. The US fear was that Cuba would become a base for Soviet nuclear weapons less than 300 miles from the US mainland. From a country which wishes, along with its closest allies, to monopolise the ability to destroy our planet by nuclear warfare it could be argued that this was a valid course of action.
With the fall of the Soviet Union and its atomisation, the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the ideological divide it represented, and the establishment in Russia of a government underpinned by a right-wing oligarchy, whatever legitimate arguments could be presented by the US for continuing the Cuban blockade have long since disappeared. Yet it continues. It continues through sheer vindictiveness from the Washington Republican administration encouraged by a vicious and nasty expatriate Cuban lobby, particularly in Florida.
I have enjoyed my visits to Cuba but I am appalled by the unnecessary poverty. If it is truly the result of "communism", then the US should immediately remove the trade blockade and demonstrate it to be so. What could be simpler? For as long as the most powerful country in the world continues to behave as a schoolyard bully towards its near neighbour the responsibility for this poverty cannot be demonstrated to rest solely with the Cuban administration, as Ms Egar claims.
I am full of admiration for a country which, against these odds, uses its limited resources to provide world-class healthcare and free quality education. Let us hope that Cuba can move forward and address other areas of its economy with help and in partnership with friends in the Americas and in Europe. We can only pray that a less vindictive and more pragmatic USA policy towards Cuba will soon emerge. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN OGLE, RegionalOrganiser, ATGWU/UNITE, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1.
Madam, - The tone of Laura Egar's letter of December 24th suggests that she is ignorant of the identity of Dervla Murphy. However, those of us who have read Dervla's many books know that she often does struggle to "survive on meagre rations" during her travels, and indeed eschews many of the so-called creature comforts at her home in Lismore.
Moreover, by assuming that we all aspire to a life of consumerism, Ms Egar has missed the central point: the after-hours primary medical care available to many of our rural citizens, including those of West Waterford, is nothing less than appalling. - Is mise,
MOIRA KEANEY, Gorteen, Ring, Co Waterford.