BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com

NEW YORK — The Cuban government has not responded to Washington’s lastest no-strings offer to provide $6.3 million in light construction materials to benefit hurricane victims. Havana has shunned all the previous offers.

The U.S. State Department told Cuban diplomats in Washington on Friday that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was ready to send $6.3 million in corrugated zinc roofing, nails, tools, lumber and light shelter kits by ship to benefit some 48,000 people hit by back-to-back devastating hurricanes.

Havana has already turned down flights full of disaster relief supplies and — as of Monday night — has not responded to the latest offer from Washington.

”It’s hard to understand — hard — how they put politics ahead of suffering,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in a phone interview with The Miami Herald on Monday. “They said last time that they needed building materials, so we added building materials. It’s frankly very surprising that the leadership — whoever is making the decisions — is putting pride, power and their own ego ahead of the suffering of the Cuban people.”

Gutierrez’ comments came amid several reports that Cubans receiving cash storm aid from an exile group in Miami were being threatened by authorities.

Melba Santana, the wife of a political prisoner in Las Tunas, said that when she attempted to distribute some money to neighbors from $300 in aid sent by the Cuban American National Foundation, state security agents threatened to charge her with a crime.

”Let’s see how far they are willing to take this, how far they are willing to sacrifice people’s suffering,” Santana said in a telephone interview. “It was a miserable little $10 I was giving out and people are in need.”

The latest U.S. offer comes on the heels of a diplomatic clash between Havana and Washington over the two powerful storms that hit the island in as many weeks. When Hurricane Gustav slammed into western Cuba on Aug. 30, the U.S. government offered $100,000 in aid and a disaster assessment team, a standard initial response to natural disasters that was widely criticized as too small and tied to conditions.

Cuba turned it down, saying an assessment team was unnecessary. When Ike hit eastern and western Cuba, destroying thousands of buildings in its path, Washington came back with the identical aid package. Cuba blasted it and asked for a temporary reprieve from the U.S. embargo instead.

Washington came under heavy criticism again for insisting on the assessment team and making such a paltry initial offer. USAID then made a third offer, lifting the conditions and increasing the aid to $5 million in goods and cash.

”It’s obvious that such a powerful government cannot comprehend that a nation’s dignity has no price,” Fidel Castro wrote in a column published last week. “If instead of $5 million it were billions, they would find the same response.”

The Cuban government’s official response was that what the nation really needed was credits to purchase construction materials. The U.S. embargo prohibits American companies from selling such materials to Cuba on credit. Current law allows food and lumber sales paid upfront in cash.

Gutierrez said lifting the embargo even temporarily would require congressional approval.

”Lifting the embargo has to do with things like releasing political prisoners. If we give that up, then we have nothing with which to fight for the Cuban people,” Gutierrez said. “That’s not what this is about. This is about free aid. They need help now, today, tomorrow, right now, and what they are asking for is a delayed process.

“They know that.”

USAID said $1.7 million of Washington’s aid is already making its way to Cuba through nongovernmental organizations. Should Cuba reject this latest offer, some of the materials could be donated to aid groups as well, said Jose Cardenas, the agency’s acting assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

”What we tried to do was base our next offer on what they said they needed: construction materials,” Cardenas said. “We did not want to be in a position like we were standing idle while seeing these destruction reports from the island. We are still trying to proceed as a disaster relief agency, as if this were the Dominican Republic or Jamaica.”

But the offer, he said, will probably be the last.

”I don’t suspect this will go on much longer,” Cardenas said. “We’ll have to donate cash and commodities to different organizations. I don’t think we will go back to the well if they reject this offer.”