Cubadebate

The spectacle of thousands of southern US residents currently jamming the roads fleeing Hurricane Ivan is in sharp contrast to the carefully planned government evacuation of 1.5 million people in Cuba this past week. Western news outlets such as the Miami Herald and the BBC made a point of criticizing Cuba's civil defense policy in the face of the potential devastation of Ivan which required the mass evacuation of residents out of danger areas. Cubans weren't given a choice, they said, they were - horror of horrors - forced to evacuate and not given the "freedom" to die.