Castroites are using the damage from Hurricane Irma as a money-making opportunity, openly advertising for donations through a helpfully offered bank account number that goes straight to Cuban government coffers.

Babalu has the dirt:

Even at the United Nations, the ever-despicable Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez pleaded for the funneling of dollars and euros into the coffers of Castro, Inc.

Lord, oh Lord, holy ordure of the anchorites of the Sinai desert… how long, how long will such criminal effrontery endure?

The whole act is unprecedented, given that communist Cuba, up until now, has always denied any damage or disaster following hurricanes.  It claims to have a great hurricane warning civil defense mechanism that minimizes deaths and damage and even now claims only ten deaths from the monster Hurricane Irma, which swept over the islands earlier this month at peak force.  It also has turned down aid from the U.S. in the past, claiming that socialism has left it well provided for in its "people first" claimed approach.

What the cash is likely for, as Babalu writer Carlos Eire has noted, is the restoration of its money-making resorts, in places like Varadero Beach.  That's where tourists flock and hard currency earnings already flow.

As for the center of downtown Havana, and the places where ordinary Cubans live, Eire is skeptical.  So are we.  Cubans already have protested the government's failure to do anything for them to restore their hurricane-ravaged parts of the capital, and the shambles the city finds itself in suggests that help probably isn't forthcoming.

No, the money is a precious thing to the detested dictatorship, and thus, only the Castroites can be allowed to have it.  Hence, they aren't about private restoration efforts; they are about state efforts.  This means that the military runs tourist resorts to keep more cash flowing and downright pocket-lines.  Only the Castroites can get into the money.  That's why these donations aren't embargo-legal, as Babalu reports.  They aren't going to let anyone else touch it.