[News] Pathological Deceit: The NYT Inverts Reality on Venezuela’s Cuban Doctors

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14406


  Pathological Deceit: The NYT Inverts Reality on Venezuela’s Cuban Doctors

By Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz - arch 27, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

After debunking 
<https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/100000006385986/the-us-blamed-maduro-for-burning-aid-to-venezuela-new-video-casts-doubt.html> Washington’s 
lies about the burning of “humanitarian aid” trucks on the 
Venezuelan/Colombian border (more than two weeks after being scooped 
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/02/24/burning-aid-colombia-venezuela-bridge/> by 
independent journalists), the *New York Times* quickly reverted to form 
in an article 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/world/americas/venezuela-cuban-doctors.html> by 
Nicholas Casey headlined “‘It is Unspeakable’: How Maduro Used Cuban 
Doctors to Coerce Voters” (3/17/19 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/world/americas/venezuela-cuban-doctors.html>).

As the title not-so-subtly suggests, Casey claimed to present bombshell 
revelations regarding the Nicolás Maduro government’s alleged 
weaponization of Cuban medical personnel as a means of holding on to 
power. On closer inspection, however, the article is riddled with 
factual inaccuracies, omissions and misrepresentations.


      *Dubious claims of politicized healthcare*

Relying on the testimony of three Cuban doctors who have defected from 
the Venezuelan/Cuban health mission and taken up residence in other 
countries, as well as 16 anonymous sources within Venezuela, Casey 
provides the reader with shocking vignettes of how Cuban medical 
personnel have supposedly been used to manipulate Venezuelan politics.

One central allegation is that the Barrio Adentro healthcare mission 
staff, most of them Cuban doctors, are denying patients care on the 
basis of political affiliations. One Cuban doctor currently residing in 
Chile told the *Times* that one patient was refused treatment “because 
she was from the opposition.” The only other evidence to substantiate 
this grave accusation is the account of an opposition mayor who claims 
he was “denied medication.”

As has been widely documented (*Guardian*, 10/13/15 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/why-do-north-korean-defector-testimonies-so-often-fall-apart>), 
defector testimonies are often unreliable, given the political stakes 
involved. Similar reservations apply to a politician aligned with an 
opposition spearheading a foreign-backed coup 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14304> in Venezuela.

Likewise worthy of skepticism is Human Rights Watch Americas director 
Jose Miguel Vivanco, whose quote, “it is unspeakable,” gives the piece 
its headline, though a reader might assume these were the words of an 
actual doctor. Human Rights Watch 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10682>, whose revolving door 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10732> with the US national 
security state is now notorious, can always be counted on to attack the 
Venezuelan government, though its charges have been debunked 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/8084> on several occasions 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10301>.

Vivanco is an especially dubious source, given his extremely biased 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13194> track record on Venezuela. 
Just over a decade ago, the HRW official was publicly rebuked 
<https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/17/more-100-latin-america-experts-question-human-rights-watchs-venezuela-report> by 
over 100 Latin America experts for a report on Venezuela that did “not 
meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, 
accuracy or credibility,” which included similar sweeping allegations of 
politicized denial of care, based on the second-hand testimony of one 
individual.


      *Implausible electoral interference*

The *Times*’ questionable allegations of denial of care quickly give way 
to even dodgier claims of Cuban doctors interfering in Venezuelan 
politics. “One former Cuban supervisor said that she and other foreign 
medical workers were given counterfeit identification cards to vote in 
an election,” Casey wrote, adding that Cuban doctors “were asked to vote 
with false identification” in 2013.

Anyone who knows how voting works in Venezuela 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13801> would dismiss these 
allegations immediately. The first step upon entering a polling station 
is presenting ID and biometrically scanning fingerprints. Computerized 
voting screens will literally not open unless a valid fingerprint is 
presented. Cuban doctors, since they are of course not Venezuelans, 
would not have their fingerprints in the system, and thus not get past 
this first step. (It’s worth noting that Cuban doctors in Venezuela 
number roughly 30,000, in a country with an electorate of around 20 
million, making the notion of a secret program to enable them to vote 
illegally in hopes of affecting electoral outcomes rather far-fetched.)

Another passage suggested a similar lack of familiarity with the 
Venezuelan electoral process:

    On the day Mr. Maduro was elected to his first term, [a Cuban
    doctor] witnessed officials opening ballot boxes and tampering with
    votes, including destroying ballots that chose the opposition.

First off, there are no “ballot boxes” or “ballots,” because voting is 
fully automated. After the voter makes their selection on the computer 
screen, a paper receipt is printed and placed in a box. At the end of 
election day, 54 percent of all voting machines, chosen at random, have 
their electronic totals cross-checked with the paper receipts. 
Destroying the receipts (not ballots) would not serve any purpose, other 
than raising a red flag when they did not agree with the electronic 
tally. (If the *Times*’ source had bothered to name the voting center, 
one could check the results and confront the National Electoral Council 
with any discrepancy, since the paper tallies are kept for a number of 
years.)

Secondly, all parties or candidates have witnesses at every electoral 
center. At the end of the day, the witnesses and the electoral delegates 
all sign a certificate validating the results. In the case of the April 
14, 2013 election, there was not a single electoral center where 
opposition candidate Henrique Capriles’ witnesses did not validate the 
results, nor any reports of destruction of ballots, perhaps because 
there are no “ballots.”

For someone who covers Venezuela regularly, Casey makes a remarkable 
number of errors in his account of the country’s electoral system. For 
example, he wrote, “In mid-2017, Mr. Maduro made a bid to consolidate 
power: a referendum for a second legislature to replace the 
opposition-controlled National Assembly.” What took place on July 30, 
2017, was an election, not a referendum, for a national constituent 
assembly, a body that is outlined in Articles 347–349 of the 1999 
Bolivarian Constitution 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/constitution/title/5>, and which is much 
more than a “second legislature.” Furthermore, the National Assembly was 
declared “null and void” by the Venezuelan Supreme Court in 2016 (*BBC*, 
1/11/16 <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35287291>), after 
defying a court order to unseat three legislators pending an 
investigation for electoral crimes.


      *Whitewashing opposition violence*

Given their factual implausibility, Casey’s anonymously sourced claims 
of ballot-stuffing and illegal voting in the 2013 presidential election 
represent a thinly veiled maneuver to delegitimize Maduro’s victory, 
which was challenged by no country in the world 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/22/united-states-contempt-venezuelan-democracy> except 
the United States—a fact that is conveniently omitted.

One unnamed source accused the Chavista government of “blackmail[ing]” 
voters that the opposition would eliminate the Barrio Adentro medical 
mission if Capriles won. Casey did not inform readers that the 
Venezuelan opposition has long vowed to suspend bilateral cooperation 
agreements <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11781> with Havana should 
it come to power.

Nor did Casey mention the opposition’s repeated acts of violence against 
Cuban health professionals and clinics. Following Capriles’ 
US-sanctioned refusal to recognize the indisputable 
<http://cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela-election-audit-05-2013.pdf> 2013 
election results, and his call for his supporters to “discharge that 
anger <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKl2ZwVNfPE>” in the streets, 
seven people were killed in the ensuing street violence 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/8652> that saw 18 Cuban-staffed 
neighborhood health clinics set ablaze. The violent anti-government 
protests of 2014 likewise featured no less than 162 attacks 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10651> against Cuban doctors, who 
were prominently lynched in effigy 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10547>. In omitting these rather 
important details, Casey succeeded in inverting reality: He presented 
Cuban medical staff as witting or unwitting gendarmes of a brutal 
regime, rather than frequent victims of opposition violence 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10684>.

This whitewashing of right-wing terror extended also to Casey’s framing 
of the 2017 anti-government mobilizations, which he said led to 100 
deaths in a “government crackdown,” leaving out the numerous killings 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13081> carried out by opposition 
supporters, including mob lynchings <https://twitter.com/marcorubio> of 
Afro-Venezuelan men and sniper assassinations 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13089> of Chavista activists.

In addition to relitigating the internationally recognized 2013 
election, Casey repeated the now-boilerplate allegations of fraud in the 
2018 presidential elections, pointing to opposition figures barred from 
running, with “Leopoldo López…dragged between house arrest and a 
military prison,” and Capriles “banned from running, along with most 
opposition parties.” Casey didn’t mention that López 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11452> was convicted 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11502> of inciting violence during 
the 2014 street protests, while Capriles was barred 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13040> due to  corruption allegations 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13576> that even the opposition has 
moved to investigate 
<http://talcualdigital.com/index.php/2018/08/23/tsj-en-el-exilio-pide-investigar-a-capriles-radonski-por-caso-odebrecht/>.

Casey’s highly selective picture of Capriles and López is particularly 
disingenuous, given that both politicians actively participated in the 
short-lived 2002 military coup 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2336?artno=2018>, with the former 
leading an attack <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=818bu4FoIak> against 
the Cuban embassy, and both of them involved in the mob kidnapping 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdMM793V-Hk> of Interior Minister Ramón 
Rodríguez Chacín. That alone would have disqualified them from holding 
political office anywhere else in the world.

It is also false <https://venezuelanalysis.com/ANALYSIS/13564> that 
opposition parties were banned, since what was required of them was to 
revalidate their legal status by collecting a minimum number of 
signatures following their boycott of the December 10,  2017, municipal 
elections. Whether or not this was a political hurdle, some opposition 
parties, such as Acción Democrática, fulfilled it 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/News/13621>. And the fact remains that 
opposition candidates /did/ run against Maduro, notably former Lara Gov. 
Henri Falcón, who was actively undermined 
<https://twitter.com/frrodriguezc/status/993305182783098880> by the 
hardline factions of the opposition, and was even threatened 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/ANALYSIS/13699> with US sanctions for 
defying the opposition boycott.


      *Erasure of sanctions*

In an article explicitly dedicated to uncovering alleged foreign 
interference in Venezuelan state and society, it is ironic that Casey 
entirely omitted the most egregious form of external intervention: US 
sanctions. Since 2017, Trump’s financial sanctions have battered the 
healthcare system directly, with recurring cases of medicine shipments 
blocked or assets destined for imports frozen as a result of US 
financial crimes enforcement directives 
<https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-warns-financial-institutions-guard-against-corrupt-venezuelan-money>, 
according to Torino Capital chief economist Francisco Rodriguez 
<https://venezuelablog.org/crude-realities-understanding-venezuelas-economic-collapse/>. 
In one such case, the Venezuelan government denounced 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13519> the freezing of $1.6 billion 
of its assets by Brussels-based financial services agency Euroclear, 
half of which was reportedly destined for medicine imports.

US economic sanctions also debilitate healthcare indirectly by 
decimating the Venezuelan economy overall. According to conservative 
estimates, US financial sanctions cost Venezuela at least $6 billion 
annually <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14073> in lost revenues, 
or around six percent of GDP. For comparison, healthcare spending in 
Latin America averages 
<https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?locations=ZJ> approximately 
seven percent of GDP, and, prior to the crisis, Venezuela was importing 
around $2 billion <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14360> in 
medicine per year. Rodriguez estimates that the new US oil sanctions, 
amounting to an effective trade embargo, will cost Venezuela an 
additional 15 percent in real GDP loss, for a cumulative contraction of 
26 percent in 2019.

Despite his stated concern 
<https://twitter.com/caseysjournal/status/1107258311374749697> for the 
“politicization” of healthcare in Venezuela, Nicholas Casey doesn’t 
think it relevant to mention his own government’s deliberate effort to 
destroy the Venezuelan economy, further devastating the country’s 
fragile health sector and killing thousands, 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14360> if not tens of thousands, 
of Venezuelans. Rather, the *New York Times*’ Andes bureau chief 
mobilizes anonymous sources and defectors—whose testimony ranges from 
dubious to preposterous—to further demonize Venezuela and provide cover 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13194> for Washington’s murderous 
regime change policy.


      Postscript: Cuban delusions and class contempt

Beyond crass factual distortions and omissions, Casey’s reporting is 
guided by the assumption that the Barrio Adentro mission is driven by 
pure political proselytism. The NYT reporter deliberately ignores that 
this program brought medical attention (not just “medicine” as Casey 
writes) to many impoverished communities for the first time. Making door 
to door visits is the modus operandi of Cuba’s prevention-focused 
healthcare system, which has consistently delivered enviable health 
indicators at low costs.

Cuban doctors, claims Casey, were “instructed to remind voters that Mr. 
Chávez had provided the medicine — and should be thanked with their 
votes,” showcasing the typical class contempt of the NYT and other 
mainstream outlets for Venezuela’s poor. The notion that people who had 
access to healthcare for the first time needed to be “reminded” that 
Chávez was an ally is ridiculous. According to the NYT, poor people are 
evidently incapable of organizing politically in line with their own 
interests, and support for any leader other than a Washington-anointed 
technocrat can only be explained by bribery and blackmail.

The implicit neo-Cold War premise undergirding the NYT’s reporting is 
that Communist Cuba has “occupied” Venezuela, which has been repeated ad 
nauseam by opposition leaders and US officials. To date, no substantive 
evidence has been presented to support this narrative, leading the likes 
of Marco Rubio to engage in the most cartoonish 
<https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1101149289257025537> of 
contortions to bolster his case.

The NYT’s fantasy portrayals of Cuba-Venezuela relations speak volumes 
about US establishment wisdom, revealing a congenic inability to imagine 
South-South relations based on shared interests of solidarity and 
anti-imperialist internationalism in lieu of Monroe Doctrine 
<https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/john-bolton-venezuela-monroe-doctrine>-inspired 
neocolonial subordination.

/Note: The final section is an addendum to the original version 
published at FAIR./

-- 
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863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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