[News] Hitting at Cuban Doctors and at Human Solidarity

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/09/hitting-at-cuban-doctors-and-at-human-solidarity/ 



  Hitting at Cuban Doctors and at Human Solidarity

by W. T. Whitney <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/gaguwe/> - 
December 9, 2019
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/News item/: Three rightwing Latin American governments have forced out 
Cuban doctors working in their countries. Over 8000 of them departed 
from Brazil in late 2018 and 382 doctors left Ecuador in mid-November, 
2019. Some 700 Cuban doctors exited Bolivia after the coup there on 
November 10. Brazilian President Bolsonaro alleged that Cuban doctors 
were incompetent. In referring to money paid by Brazil for their 
services and retained by Cuba’s government, Bolsonaro accused the Cuban 
government of enslaving them. Governments in Ecuador and Bolivia claimed 
the Cubans doctors had supported their political opponents.

/News item/: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently applauded the 
interim Bolivian government’s decision to expel Cuban doctors working 
there. Between 1996 and 2016, the U.S. government pursued its “medical 
parole” program. Cuban doctors working abroad were provided with 
assistance encouraging them to abandon their posts and move to the 
United States. President Obama ended the program in January 2017. U. S. 
Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and Robert Menéndez demanded recently 
that it be restored.

U.S. interference with Cuban medical assistance to other countries is 
part of its long campaign – joined by rightwing allies in Latin America 
– to undo the Cuban Revolution. It’s reasonable to assume that in 
looking for targets to hit, Cuba’s enemies would select aspects of 
Cuba’s revolution essential to its purpose or to its survival.

Dedication to human solidarity has defined Cuba’s revolutionary movement 
from the start. Cuba has achieved superior indicators of health outcome 
at home and has responded to the health care needs of peoples abroad. 
These efforts, widely known and much admired, established Cuba as a 
model for the world in its practice of human solidarity. The doctors 
working abroad are highly visible agents of solidarity. They are joined 
by Cuban teachers, literacy specialists, sports experts, technicians, 
and engineers.

Cuba’s solidarity efforts, particularly medical solidarity, are unique 
and on that score might lead Cuba’s enemies to suppose that they 
contribute to the durability of the Cuban Revolution. The remedy, they 
perhaps reason, is to remove the doctors.  After all, socialist 
revolutions making up the Soviet Bloc never carried out Cuba’s kind of 
outreach – and they disappeared.

Additionally, those benefiting from the Cuban doctors’ outreach are 
marginalized and working peoples. The relationship involves interaction 
among fellow victims of capitalist or colonialist excess. Joined 
together as a social class, they are, in effect, obeying the founders of 
scientific socialism. Workers of the world really have been uniting. 
Even the appearance of facilitating such a process could mean another 
back mark for the doctors.

The primary complaint about them, however, relates to their solidarity 
work itself, which is at the core of Cuba’s revolutionary purpose. Jose 
Marti put it there; he was “central to Cuba’s history and … the 
embodiment of the nation’s identity” (Granma newspaper). Cuban 
revolutionaries have treasured that slogan of Marti which 
says: “Homeland is humanity” (/Patria es humanidad/). The title for his 
speech in Tampa, Florida in 1891 was “With All and for the Good of All.” 
So Cuba’s adversaries are disrespecting Marti’s legacy when they meddle 
with the doctors.

Ernesto Che Guevara likewise elevated solidarity. He taught that 
individuals must participate in history, be an agent of change. But to 
do so they must attend to their own consciousness.  The Revolution, 
Guevara envisioned, would be a school where students take on values, 
ethics, and “love.” Cubans, newly aware, would thus be motivated to act 
voluntarily for the common good.

The Cuban doctors symbolize important revolutionary ideals and thus are 
superb targets for forces already overflowing with wrath at the Cuban 
Revolution. In the current era of turbulence in Latin America, pretexts 
are readily at hand. The sheer size of that Cuban solidarity project 
probably alarms them too. Analyst Wilkie Delgado Correa recently offered 
figures that are staggering.

As he reports: since 1963 Cuban doctors have worked in 164 
countries.  Non-Cubans graduating as doctors in Cuba (1966-2017) totaled 
33, 974. Originating from 135 countries, they include 28,538 graduates 
(2005 – 2017) of Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine, among them 
5135 Bolivians, 2071 Ecuadorians, and “more than 1000” Brazilians. In 
2017 Cubans were teaching at 7 foreign medical schools. Cuba’s 
“Operación Milagro” has provided 2.9 million people from 34 countries 
with no-cost eye operations.  Since 1963, Cuban doctors abroad have 
engaged in 1,667,248,707 patient visits; they’ve performed 12,188,554 
surgeries.

One U.S. purpose in harassing these Cuban doctors blends into the main 
rationale for the U.S. economic blockade, which is to deprive Cubans and 
their government of money. Some of governments hosting Cuban doctors pay 
for their labor with money sent to Havana. (The Cuban government pays 
the doctors, while retaining a good portion of the funds.) If the 
doctors depart, the money stops.

Very likely the doctors’ service to the Revolution as emissaries of 
solidarity irritates reactionaries more acutely than their role in 
generating money for the Cuban government. Not only do they epitomize 
revolutionary purpose, but they are succeeding in an area where the 
United States is failing. And the world is watching.

Recently an epidemiologic report established that life expectancy has 
been dropping for U.S. adults in their middle years. Earlier reports 
show that black babies in the United States die at twice the rate of 
white babies. All U.S. babies, taken together, are considerably more 
likely to die in their first year of life than Cuban babies.

What remains now is to provide some documentation relating to opinions 
put forth here. The excerpts appearing below, taken from two accounts, 
were translated by the author.

*1. Luis Varese observed Cuban doctors at work in Latin America*.

/Trained as an anthropologist and originally from Peru, Varese served as 
representative of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees 
/*/(/*/UNHCR), working mostly in Ecuador. /

“On May 31, 1970 an earthquake and then floods cut down the lives of 
more than 70,000 Peruvians in Ancash Department, Peru. In just a few 
days, almost hours, five field hospitals with Cuban doctors were on the 
ground in five provinces devastated by the earthquakes … Fidel and 
150,000 Cubans donated blood to the surviving brothers and sisters of 
this tragedy. …

“[After the earthquake] 46 years later, in Pedernales [Ecuador], I saw 
the same faces, the same eyes, the same looks of appreciation for the 
Cuban doctors who were there doing what they could, offering care and 
medical attention to those who needed it. They did so with 
professionalism, efficiency, the right equipment, and above all with the 
great, caring humility that characterizes them …

“In 1988 I lived with some of my family in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, 
where I worked as a consultant for UNHCR. The only doctors in the area 
were the Cuban doctors, plus a few local doctors, either 
African-descended or Miskito … It was the time of “low intensity 
warfare” and the Nicaraguan counterrevolution, and there were very few 
Nicaraguan doctors enthused about going into the conflict zone, but we 
saw the Cuban doctors working there. We were their patients too, 
especially after one of my sons fell gravely ill with malaria …

“In 1990 in Managua when President Violeta Chamorro was governing, my 
youngest son contracted a middle ear infection … It was a Cuban doctor 
who finally assessed him and determined that the infectious process 
could be turning into meningitis. He arranged for his transfer to 
Havana. They took care of him in the pediatric hospital there and saved 
his life. He was five months old and for 135 days had cried with fever 
and pain …

“In 1995, working with UNHCR, we were in charge of the voluntary 
repatriation of 12,000 Guatemalan refugees [from southern Mexico] to 
Quiché province in Guatemala. In the remote settlements there, the only 
doctors on hand were the Cubans. There was no electricity and not much 
potable water. The job of ACNUR was to improve the living conditions of 
the people returning, Because of the Cuban doctors, children, women, and 
men arriving in these barely accessible areas received comprehensive 
care … Years later I returned and still there were no Guatemalan 
doctors. In the villages of Quiché there were only Cubans …

“Later I worked for the United Nations in Haiti and again I found Cuban 
doctors working with that immense humanitarian vocation under the most 
difficult condition in that country. With shared dedication, they were 
cheerful, full of life, and ready to communicate their enthusiasm. They 
of course gave evidence of advanced scientific and professional training …

“During the earthquake of April 16, 2016 [in Ecuador] the first 
“foreigners” (if one can call them that in Our America) to arrive at the 
Manta airport were the Cuban doctors, and I know that because two of my 
sons were part of the coordination team at the airport.”

2. *Fidel Castro talks about doctors and solidarity*

/Wilkie Delgado Correa, a cardio-vascular physiologist, academician, and 
political writer recently surveyed Fidel Castro’s views on medical care 
and solidarity. The following excerpts were taken from speeches before 
graduating medical and dental students and at the opening of a new 
science center./

*Cuba needs health care* — On October 17, 1062, Castro pointed out that 
if basic health care is needed in the cities, “awareness of that need is 
much greater in the countryside where they never have hospitals, 
dentists, or doctors. The question precisely is: how do we attend to 
this necessity of the people? … Everything that interests the people is 
of fundamental concern to revolutionaries, who work for that and only 
that… The people quite reasonably bring up the question of medical care 
and health care.” Castro elsewhere mentioned that, “[A] great purpose 
will be fulfilled: that of passing from curative medicine to 
preventative medicine, that of keeping citizens from getting sick.”

*Health for other peoples; it takes a revolution* – In that same 
address, Castro says: “[W]e may even do something to help other 
countries, although it may be more symbolic than anything else. Let’s 
take the case of Algeria. Most of the doctors were French and most of 
them left. The health care situation there is really tragic. That’s why, 
talking with the students today, we told them that we need 50 voluntary 
doctors … to go to Algeria to help the Algerians* … *“

“We are certain that more will offer themselves as an expression of the 
spirit of solidarity of our people with peoples who are friends and who 
are worse off than we are.  We said years, but years will pass and we 
can envision 40 or 50 thousand university students and young people 
graduating … because the revolution can do that … and it’s only a 
revolution that can accomplish those feats …Today we celebrate ourselves 
as revolutionaries. But the revolution isn’t just about coming up with 
ideas; it carries them out. The Revolution is not about theory. It’s 
about deeds above all else.”

*Peoples of the world can expect solidarity* — On June 18, 1965, Castro 
noted that, “We might limit ourselves to attending to our own 
necessities. But the reality of today’s world shows that ties among 
peoples inevitably grew stronger, especially among revolutionary peoples 
– and among underdeveloped peoples … Other countries besides Algeria 
need technically-trained people. So, how many do we prepare? We simply 
prepare as many as we need ourselves and as many as other fraternal 
peoples happen to need …”

“If it’s given to us to institute mass education and succeed in 
preparing masses of technical people at all levels, how are we to forget 
those peoples that still live in the midst of oppression, ignorance, and 
illiteracy? [We think about] the needs of other peoples where there are 
millions and the numbers of doctors among them [are few]. That’s because 
imperialism and colonialism, among other things, block the way to any 
kind of cultural and technical improvements for exploited peoples. They 
treat human beings like animals, as cheap labor. In no way will they be 
interested in developing the intelligence of those peoples.”

“That’s why when it’s a question of knowing how much of anything we need 
to prepare, we have only one answer: as much as possible! Everyone has 
needs, and if we don’t need something for ourselves, others who are 
needier can use it. And we have to prepare ourselves to make good on our 
obligations to other peoples. Otherwise, our concept of human solidarity 
would be framed within the minuscule sphere of our national borders and 
national interests.”

/*W.T. Whitney Jr.* is a retired pediatrician and political journalist 
living in Maine./

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