U.S. Officials See Aid for Post-Castro Cuba
Fri Jan 16, 5:19 PM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Pablo Bachelet

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States would quickly deploy aid to Cuba after the death of President Fidel Castro to prevent mass migration into the cities or toward Florida, U.S. officials said on Friday.

Roger Noriega, the State Department's top diplomat for Latin America, who is coordinating a task force on a post-Castro Cuba, said Washington views preparations as an urgent matter.

"Castro will not live forever and there will be democratic change and a democratic government in Cuba," Noriega said on Friday at a University of Miami seminar on aid for Cuba. "The stakes are very high for us."

Concerns about Castro's health resurfaced on Wednesday when Bogota Mayor Luis Garzon said the 77-year-old Cuban leader looked "very ill" and had trouble speaking.

President Bush announced the creation of the post-Castro commission in October, vowing to toughen a four-decade-old U.S. trade embargo. The group is to present recommendations to Bush on May 1.

Castro, who has been in power since 1959, last month called the committee a "group of idiots" and said Cuba's one-party communist state would survive his death.

Noriega said the report will have recommendations on democracy and the rule of law, the creation of core institutions of free enterprise, improving infrastructure, providing health, and improving housing and urban services.

Some 100 officials culled from the National Security Council, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, and the departments of State, Housing, Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security began work on the report on Dec. 5.

Washington wants to quickly deploy aid to the Cuban countryside to avoid a massive migration into urban centers or across the Florida Straits to U.S. soil. U.S. officials are urging Cuban-American charities to register with USAID to make them eligible for federal funding.

One recommendation is that relief work be carried out through local Cuban officials to strengthen a transition government that can take credit for improvements. Another proposal calls for Cuba's public schools to be kept open.

USAID plans $7 million in aid for Cuba this year, on top of the $28 million the United States has spent on non-governmental organizations it says are working to promote human rights, a free flow of information and a peaceful transition in Cuba.

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