Caribbean Matters: Rubio continues attacks on Cuban medical missions
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Last week we took a look at the criminal activities of the Trump administration in the Caribbean which may have the underlying motivation of attempting to gain access to Venezuela’s massive oil reserves. This is not the only Caribbean vendetta held by the current maladministration in Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio continues to grind his axe against Cuba, yet he based his political rise to power on the backs of right-wing Florida anti-Castro elements. His appointment as secretary of state was not good news for Cuba.
Al Jazeera has been covering the current fallout over Cuba’s program to send doctors abroad:
The United States has announced it is revoking the visas of Brazilian, African and Caribbean officials over their ties to Cuba’s programme that sends doctors abroad, which Washington has described as “forced labour”.
The US named two Brazilian Ministry of Health officials, Mozart Julio Tabosa Sales and Alberto Kleiman, who have had their visas revoked for working on Brazil’s Mais Medicos, or “More Doctors” programme, which was created in 2013.
In a statement on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said sanctions were imposed on officials “involved in abetting the Cuban regime’s coercive labour export scheme”, which he claimed “enriches the corrupt Cuban regime and deprives the Cuban people of essential medical care”.
“The Department of State took steps to revoke visas and impose visa restrictions on several Brazilian government officials, former Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) officials, and their family members for their complicity with the Cuban regime’s labour export scheme in the Mais Medicos programme,” Rubio said.
In an earlier statement, Rubio also announced visa restrictions for African officials, without specifying the countries involved, as well as the Caribbean country Grenada, for the same reasons.
Grenada has pushed back against these actions, as Jacqueline Charles reported for the Miami Herald:
Grenada’s foreign minister is pushing back on the U.S. State Department’s assertions that the eastern Caribbean nation, which has had a long-standing relationship with Cuba, is exploiting Cuban doctors and other medical professionals in order to enrich the communist regime.
The English-speaking nation, which is still struggling to recover from Category 4 Hurricane Beryl last year, is among several countries that were singled out this week by Secretary of State Marco Rubio for visa restrictions due to what he called officials’ “complicity in the Cuban regime’s medical mission scheme in which medical professionals are ‘rented’ by other countries at high prices and most of the revenue is kept by the Cuban authorities.“
Grenada Foreign Minister Joseph Andall rejected the idea that Grenada is taking advantage of doctors who are part of Cuba’s foreign medical brigades. “Regarding the charges of so-called forced labor and human trafficking, we will never be party to anything of that nature,” Andall said. “Grenada respects all international conventions and protocols regarding the protection of human dignity, and we are quite satisfied that the Cuban medical program with us is totally above board and in compliance with our international labor and human rights standards. So we have no qualms about being able to defend them.”
This issue was also discussed this week at the UN General Assembly on Global Health and Foreign Policy:
“Global health is a universal right for rich and poor alike”, said the representative of Venezuela, speaking for the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter on improving international cooperation and multilateral efforts to address global health challenges and promote equity in health for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which the Assembly discussed earlier in the day. “No country or region acting in isolation […] will be able to meet the urgent needs of their people,” he said.
Further, he condemned “unilateral coercive measures” as “mass violations of human rights” and urged their immediate repeal, while denouncing United States efforts to discredit Cuban medical cooperation and praising Cuban doctors for saving lives worldwide.
Leftist publications are speaking out against the United States’ position. W.T. Whitney Jr. wrote for Counterpunch:
The UN General Assembly’s August 25 session on global health and foreign policy heard from Cuban Ambassador Yuri Gala López. Cuba’s top UN official mentioned that, “we have helped to prepare tens of thousands of doctors from various countries of the Global South.” He denounced U.S. inclusion of Cuba on its list of State Sponsors of Terrorism and then turned to “the slanderous U.S. campaign directed at our medical services.”
“Selfishness must be banished from international relations, and unilateral coercive measures that negatively impact the enjoyment of the right to health must be eliminated,” he insisted. But his generalities leave unsaid the anti-human, cruel, and cynical nature of a new mode of U.S. attack on Cuba. Now the U.S. indicts Cuba for taking healthcare to the world, for practicing international solidarity.
We urge readers to sign a petition demanding that the current U.S. assault on Cuba’s medical missions stop. The Bay Area Cuba Solidarity Network and the US-Cuba Normalization Conference Coalition collaborated in presenting the petition.
It calls upon the U.S. government to end “the U.S. slander campaign against Cuba’s medical brigades” and remove “visa restrictions on countries that contract with the brigades for much-needed healthcare services.” The petition with its signatures will be delivered to elected officials of the U.S. government and to delegations of the various countries belonging to the UN General Assembly.
This U.S. stance against Cuban doctors has roots that span decades. Let us never forget Hurricane Katrina and how Cuba assisted with medical aid. Manolo De Los Santos writes for Peoples Dispatch:
In New Orleans, as desperately overworked healthcare providers struggled with a critical lack of medicine, equipment, and personnel, the Cuban government made its formal offer on September 2. The Senate Majority Leader at the time, Bill Frist, a physician himself who was visiting the flooded city, acknowledged the crisis, stating, “The distribution of medical assistance continues to be a serious problem,” and confirmed reports that scores of people were dying as a result. As the US government faltered, a small island nation, blockaded and vilified by Washington for decades, extended an immediate and comprehensive offer of aid. Fidel Castro announced that Cuba was ready to send a medical brigade of 1,586 doctors, equipped with 36 tons of medical supplies, to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina. This wasn’t a conditional offer, nor was it for profit. It was a gesture of unconditional solidarity, rooted in the values of the Cuban people, in offering help to those in need, whether suffering from natural disasters or colonialism.
“We would be honored to send our doctors,” Fidel declared. “We could move them by air in groups of 100, and they could arrive within 12 hours of permission being granted.” The doctors were prepared to work in the most challenging conditions, bringing not just medical expertise but field hospitals of their own and decades of experience in providing free and socialized healthcare to millions of people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They were even willing to brave the dangerous waters to reach those stranded. This was the nascent stage of what would soon become the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade, a testament to Cuba’s unwavering commitment to global health.
The Henry Reeve Brigade, named after a young American volunteer from Brooklyn, New York, who fought for Cuban independence in the 19th century, was officially formed shortly after Katrina. Its mission: to provide medical assistance in disaster situations and serious epidemics anywhere in the world. While the Bush administration ultimately rejected Cuba’s offer of aid for Katrina, citing “logistical challenges,” the reason given was a lack of full diplomatic relations with Cuba, a claim that rang hollow given the Bush administration had just accepted aid from Taiwan, with which the US also lacks full diplomatic relations. It was a thinly veiled excuse rooted in geopolitical animosity.
I admit that knowing Trump’s obsession with garnering a Nobel Peace Prize, I burst out laughing when I saw this. It would be poetic justice if the Henry Reeve Brigade received the prize that Trump seems to think is his due.
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