Nature Targets Cuba

Along With Human Enemies

     For a lot of years, Marc Frank has been the best and fairest journalist telling the world what life is really life on the island of Cuba. That's important because, especially in the U. S. but also elsewhere, the Cuban narrative since the 1950s has mostly concentrated on making the point that the now 89-year-old Fidel Castro is a really bad man while his predecessors -- the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and U. S. businessmen -- were Mother Teresa-like angels. Marc Frank, however, has had the guts and the integrity as a journalist and author to provide balanced images of Cuba. He is the prized Reuters journalist but many venues, even including ABC-TV in the U. S., often depend on Mr. Frank when they want unbiased perspectives of everyday life on the important but usually maligned island. He spends the bulk of his time surveying the day-to-day lives of everyday Cubans, not focusing solely on the reactions to or results of counter-revolutionary schemes concocted by the U. S. Congress, Miami exiles, and foreign-backed domestic dissidents. This week Marc Frank's insightful article was entitled: "Cuba On Edge As Drought Worsens." He focused, as usual, on how everyday Cubans were coping with that latest disaster and, secondarily, how the government was reacting to it. He wrote: "Cuba put its defense system on alert on Monday {August 17th} due to a year-long drought that is forecast to worsen in the coming months and has already damaged agriculture and left more than a million people relying on trucked-in water. Around Cuba -- from famous cigars to sugar, vegetables, rice, coffee and beans -- the drought is damaging crops. It has slowed planting and left one in 10 residents waiting for government tank trucks to survive in record summer heat." Those were the opening words in Marc Frank's article this week. He went on to explain how the drought is affecting Cubans today. That's important, yet the Miami extremists in the U. S. Congress, such as Marco Rubio, and their favorite dissidents on the island, such as Yoani Sanchez, totally ignore such aspects of Cuban life while they concentrate on their counter-revolutionary activities that are so economically and politically rewarding. Meanwhile, as the star journalist for Reuters, Marc Frank tells you about the struggles, the hopes, and the daily lives of everyday Cubans. This week -- as U. S. and Cuban flags fly high at the newly reopened embassies in Washington and Havana -- many Cubans are more concerned with getting clean water to drink, bathe, and cook...and the Cuban government is devoting considerable resources in trying to cope with the problem. Marc Frank even says that Cubans regret the scarcity of hurricanes, which are destructive but at least counter droughts.

Water tanks are used to fill up the omnipresent truck deliveries in Cuba.

        Ines Maria Chapman Waught is the Cuban in charge of surveying Cuba's water shortage. She told Marc Frank: "The drought is everyone's problem and so every state entity has to create a plan immediately." Drought conditions across the Caribbean, caused by the phenomenon known as El Nino, have left reservoirs at 37 percent of capacity. The U. S. embargo hurts Chapman's drought struggles.

          Not coincidentally, one of the best books published in 2015 is Marc Frank's latest gem -- "CUBAN REVELATIONS: Behind the Scenes in Havana." As a journalist and as an author, Marc Frank is rather unique regarding Cuba. He tells the truth. When it comes to Cuba, truth is a forgotten noun and a lost process.

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