Cuba to Return Aid Bearing ‘Propaganda’
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MEXICO CITY — The Cuban government said Saturday that it will return to American donors boxes of rice, beans and powdered milk destined for hurricane victims that it says were marked with “counterrevolutionary propaganda.”
The rest of the 32 tons of U.S.-donated food--about 24 tons--will be distributed, Prensa Latina, Cuba’s official news agency, said in a dispatch from Havana. The dispatch was monitored in Mexico City.
About one-fourth of the aid, “marked with propaganda from counterrevolutionary elements and the extreme right,” will be returned to a Roman Catholic aid organization, the news agency said.
When the agency’s relief plane arrived last weekend, the government objected to what it considered propagandist slogans, including the phrase “For Cuba, love conquers all” and the word “exile,” that were written on some of the boxes of food.
Hurricane Lili destroyed nearly 5,500 homes in Cuba and damaged 79,000 houses.
More than 1.6 million acres of sugar cane were devastated, along with 53,000 acres of banana plantations and 90,000 acres of other crops.
The Mexican government sent 70 tons of food, medicine and construction materials to Cuba to help hurricane victims.
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