Mission to Havana: An Eyewitness Account

The U.S.-Cuban impasse over Elian Gonzalez has totally energized the island, according to a former Queens resident, now adjunct professor of urban affairs at the College of Mount St. Vincent in Riverdale.
Dr. Lorraine Marx-Singer, born and raised in Jamaica Estates, said her visit last week to Havana was the realization of a 40-year dream.
As Elians two grandmothers were arriving last week at JFK Airport with representatives of the National Council of Churches, Marx-Singer told The Queens Courier that everywhere she went in Cuba, she saw photos and billboards demanding the U.S. return the child to his father and grandparents in Cardenas, Cuba.
The expert in urban affairs joined with members of Madre, a womens health and human rights group that brought tens of thousands of dollars of urgently needed medical supplies to Cuba. The shortage is largely due to a 40-year American embargo of the island.
"The medicines are needed for women suffering from breast cancer and other diseases," she said. "The nation also lacks film for mammograms."
Marx-Singer, who teaches courses in cultural and urban affairs, said she carried some of the medical supplies on the chartered El Salvador Airlines flight that leaves weekly from JFK Airport. The first New York-to-Havana flights were initiated recently in what some saw as a softening of U.S.-Cuban relations.
"Cuba has an outstanding health care system," she said. "But cancer medicines such as tamoxifin are desperately needed."
She said that Cuba is forced by the embargo to buy higher-priced medical supplies from Canada, Mexico and eastern Europe. But the crisis uppermost in the minds of most Cubans was the fast-changing events swirling around the young Cuban boy and his return to his family in Cardenas.
"I spoke at a meeting at a school," Marx-Singer said. "I told them how transforming an experience it had been for me in Cuba."
She said the Cubans that day had only one question for her.
"Tell us what you think about Elians return here," they asked.
Marx-Singer told them that many in the U.S. are working to return the youngster to his family in Cuba.
Madre, the New York City-based organization that sponsored the mercy mission, issued its own statement on Elian Gonzalez.
"This organization representing human rights professionals, family lawyers, womens organizations and child development professionals, calls upon the U.S. government to immediately return the Cuban child to his father. The manipulation of this boy for political gain is both illegal and immoral."
Marx-Singer hoped the Elian situation could be a turning point in the poor state of relations between Havana and Washington.
"I sensed that the Cubans are ready for a change," she said. "But first we must make it easier for Cubans to get medical supplies for an excellent but overburdened health care system."
The U.S. is split over ending the embargo.
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat, believes "the embargo does more harm than good."
He said there are very few foreign policy issues debated in Washington that prompt the level of vitriolic reaction that U.S. policy with respect to Cuba does. "Its difficult to have a reasoned conversation about the nature of the policy, its objectives, or whether it has been effective. I believe that such a conversation is long overdue."
Dodd said there is no question that the U.S. embargo, particularly on the sales of U.S. food and medicines, has been hard on the Cuban people.
"The two hospitals that I toured while in Havana were poorly equipped with medicines and medical equipment."
On the other hand, Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of South Carolina, is in favor of tightening the screws.
"Americans should never condone Castros ruthless oppression of the Cuban people," he said.
Marx-Singer described Cuba as "one of the most beautiful places Ive seen," although she acknowledged that there is much in Havana that is in disrepair.
"There is a great disparity," she said, "between the tourist scene and the local economy."
Marx-Singer, a graduate of Jamaica High School, said she learned of Madres work in The Nation magazine and contacted them about joining in a visit to Havana.
"I found the trip a rewarding one," she said. "I still recall the happiness in the faces of the children."