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<h1 class="reader-title">Amid Coronavirus Pandemic, Bolsonaro's
Brazil Begs for Cuban Doctors – After Expelling Them</h1>
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<p><strong>Brazil’s far-right government requested the
return of thousands of Cuban doctors to help fight the
coronavirus. Months ago, President Jair Bolsonaro
smeared the doctors as “terrorists” and expelled them.</strong></p>
<p>By Ben Norton – March 17, 2020</p>
<p>The coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed the health
infrastructure of countries around the world. Desperate
to contain the deadly virus, hard-hit countries,
including even rich European nations like Italy and
Britain, have reached out for expert medical help from
Cuba, China, and Venezuela.</p>
<p>Even Brazil, currently under the control of a far-right
administration that has joined the US in demonizing
Cuba’s socialist government, has fallen back on the
small nation for much-needed medical support —
requesting help from the very same Cuban doctors it
expelled months ago.</p>
<p>Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly
called for the restoration of the military dictatorship,
threatened his political opponents with violence, and <a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/17/brazil-paper-reveals-bolsonaro-terror-plot-venezuela/">backed
terrorist attacks on Venezuela</a>.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has also taken aim at Cuba, praising the
far-right military dictatorship of <a
href="https://www.dw.com/en/bolsonaro-chile-is-not-cuba-thanks-to-augusto-pinochets-dictatorship/a-50292225">Augusto
Pinochet</a> for supposedly preventing Chile from
becoming like Havana.</p>
<p>Before Bolsonaro was elected president in 2018, 10,000
doctors Cuban doctors were inside Brazil, working in
some of the poorest, most remote regions of the country.
Their assistance arrived thanks to an agreement between
Havana and the country’s left-wing Workers’ Party
government, which sought Cuban help to treat those that
the Brazilian health system had long failed to reach.</p>
<p>Throughout his presidential campaign, Bolsonaro slammed
the Cuban doctors in his country as a nefarious fifth
column, denigrated them as “<a
href="https://mundo.sputniknews.com/america-latina/202001091090078546-cuba-desmiente-acusaciones-de-bolsonaro-que-tildo-de-terroristas-a-medicos-cubanos/">terrorists</a>,”
and pledged to expel them.</p>
<p>When he took power following a US-backed soft coup
against the Workers’ Party government, Bolsonaro made
good on his promise. He kicked out many of the Cuban
doctors, leaving impoverished rural regions without
medical personnel.</p>
<p>By February 2020, however, the Brazilian government
began to reverse course. The Bolsonaro administration
had been unable to find doctors who would serve in these
remote areas, so it agreed to allow the <a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/cuban-doctors-will-again-assist-the-poorest-in-brazil--20200218-0003.html">1,800
Cuban doctors</a> who remained in the country to
return to the communities they had previously served.</p>
<p>And now, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Brasilia’s
right-wing occupant has done a complete about-face.</p>
<p><a
href="https://orinocotribune.com/venezuela-requests-5-billion-dollars-of-imf-emergency-credit-line-to-fight-coronavirus/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">RELATED
CONTENT: Venezuela Requests 5 Billion Dollars of IMF
Emergency Credit Line to Fight Coronavirus</a></p>
<p>In a press conference on March 15, Brazilian Secretary
of Health João Gabbardo <a
href="https://revistaforum.com.br/coronavirus/coronavirus-bolsonaro-apela-para-cubanos-excluidos-do-mais-medicos/">beseeched
Cuba to send back the doctors who were expelled</a> to
prevent the country’s health system from collapsing as
it battled a spreading pandemic.</p>
<p>Gabbardo declared that 5,000 of the Cuban doctors
re-deployed to Brazil will be assigned to primary care
centers across the massive country.</p>
<p>The Bolsonaro administration’s reversal was
particularly embarrassing considering that, just last
year, the president claimed the Cuban doctors were not
real medical experts, but ideological brain-washers
training poor Brazilians to become communist guerrillas.</p>
<p>“The PT [Workers’ Party] sent about 10,000 costumed
doctors to Brazil here, in poor places, to create
guerrilla cells and indoctrinate people. So much so
that, when I arrived, they left, because I was going to
go after them,” <a
href="https://revistaforum.com.br/politica/bolsonaro/pt-botou-10-mil-fantasiados-de-medicos-para-fazer-celula-de-guerrilha-e-doutrinacao-diz-bolsonaro/">Bolsonaro
claimed in a conspiratorial screed</a> in 2019.</p>
<p>The grim reality of the coronavirus crisis has forced
even Cuba’s sworn enemies to seek help from its
world-renowned medical system.</p>
<p>Brazil has the fifth-largest economy on Earth, as well
as the sixth-biggest population, with more than 210
million people. Cuba, meanwhile, is a relatively poor
country with just around 11 million people, and is
suffering under a suffocating US sanctions regime. But
thanks to its socialist system, Havana has highly
skilled and ethically committed doctors to spare – even
to nations that have assisted the US bid for regime
change against it.</p>
<p>The <a
href="https://pt.org.br/apesar-do-preconceito-de-bolsonaro-medicos-cubanos-retornam-para-combater-coronavirus/">Workers’
Party responded</a> to the news in an official
statement: “President Bolsonaro owes apologies to the
Brazilian population and to all the Cuban doctors who
were practically expelled from Brazil facing attacks,
lies, and fake news.”</p>
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="pt">Os médicos cubanos virão
trabalhar nos rincões do Brasil por meio do Programa
Mais Médicos, implantado pelo ex-ministro da Saúde e
deputado federal Alexandre Padilha (<a
href="https://twitter.com/padilhando?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@padilhando</a>)
(PT-SP), no governo Dilma Rousseff ⭐<a
href="https://t.co/rG1nsb04On">https://t.co/rG1nsb04On</a></p>
<p>— PT Brasil (@ptbrasil) <a
href="https://twitter.com/ptbrasil/status/1239664771240284161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March
16, 2020</a></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<h3>US government and corporate media smear Cuban doctors,
spreading conspiracies</h3>
<p>It is not just Brazil’s far-right government that has
spread absurd conspiracies about Cuban medical experts.</p>
<p>The US government has for many years targeted Cuba’s
international doctors program, spreading lies and
falsely likening it to human trafficking.</p>
<p>The George W. Bush administration created a
counter-program in 2006 called the Cuban Medical
Professional Parole to essentially <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/cuba-usa-doctors-idUSL1N14S1LY20160108">bribe
the Cuban doctors to defect.</a> The Bush-era program
offered residence in the United States to thousands of
Cuban medical professionals if they agreed to switch
sides and help the US embassy in the country where they
were serving abroad.</p>
<p>Corporate media outlets have also echoed the US
government’s propaganda targeting Cuba’s doctors
program.</p>
<p>The <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/world/americas/venezuela-cuban-doctors.html">New
York Times</a> published a dubiously sourced story
falsely claiming that the government of Venezuelan
President Nicolás Maduro was using the medical attention
provided by Cuban doctors “as a political weapon” to
“compel patients to vote for the government.”</p>
<p>The Times’ accusation was based on anonymous opposition
supporters and former Cuban doctors who defected to live
under the right-wing governments of Brazil, Chile, and
Ecuador, which each advance policies aggressively
targeting Cuba for regime change.</p>
<p><a
href="https://orinocotribune.com/delcy-rodriguez-three-new-cases-of-coronavirus-confirmed-in-venezuela-this-tuesday/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">RELATED
CONTENT: Delcy Rodríguez: Three New Cases of
Coronavirus Confirmed in Venezuela this Tuesday</a></p>
<p>The Times’ propaganda talking points were <a
href="https://fair.org/home/pathological-deceit-the-nyt-inverts-reality-on-venezuelas-cuban-doctors/">dismantled
by journalists</a> Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz, who
live in Venezuela. Koerner and Vas demonstrated
meticulously how the “article [was] riddled with factual
inaccuracies, omissions and misrepresentations.”</p>
<p>It is true that <a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/11/life-resistance-venezuela-ben-norton-us-blockade/">Venezuela’s
medical system has been devastated by the US
government’s sanctions</a> and an exodus of many of
its own medical professionals.</p>
<p>Cuba has played an integral role in supporting
Venezuela’s battered health system, while Washington’s
economic war systematically dismantled it.</p>
<p>This March, Cuba dispatched a team of medical experts
to Venezuela to help the country contain the Covid-19
crisis.</p>
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">A Cuban specialized technical
delegation arrives in Venezuela led by Cuba's
Director for the Ministry of Public Health, José
Ernesto Betancourt, as part of the work by the
Presidential Commission to combat <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Covid19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Covid19</a>.
🇨🇺🇻🇪 <a href="https://t.co/AjmJELt7RX">pic.twitter.com/AjmJELt7RX</a></p>
<p>— Camila (@camilateleSUR) <a
href="https://twitter.com/camilateleSUR/status/1239382859711946752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March
16, 2020</a></p>
</blockquote>
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<h3>Venezuela seeks regional collaboration, is rejected by
Colombia</h3>
<p>Venezuela, for its part, has also encouraged regional
collaboration to try to fight the coronavirus outbreak.</p>
<p>The country’s leftist government even extended an olive
branch to the far-right governments in Colombia and
Brazil, which have cut ties with it, recognized
US-backed <a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/">coup
leader Juan Guaidó</a> as supposed president, and
supported violent terror attacks on Venezuelan soil.</p>
<p>Venezuela called for peaceful dialogue with Colombia
and Brazil, emphasizing that the countries should work
together to try to contain Covid-19.</p>
<p>The hardline Colombian government of President Iván
Duque initially announced that it was going to
coordinate with Venezuela’s actual, elected government —
but soon after, under apparent US government pressure,
it <a
href="https://www.eltiempo.com/politica/gobierno/duque-no-tendra-dialogo-directo-con-maduro-para-enfrentar-coronavirus-en-venezuela-473274">partially
backtracked</a>.</p>
<p>Colombia later clarified that it would only work
through the Pan American Health Organization and that
there would be no direct communication with Venezuela.</p>
<h3>Ecuador outsources coronavirus tests and rams through
neoliberal reforms</h3>
<p>While countries around the world are seeking medical
help from Cuba to contain the coronavirus, Washington’s
allies in Latin America are failing to meet the basic
needs of their populations.</p>
<p>The US-backed, <a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/07/ecuador-revolt-lenin-morenos-neoliberal-drone-zangano/">right-wing
government of Lenín Moreno in Ecuador</a>, which has
joined Brazil and Colombia in supporting the Trump
administration’s coup efforts against Venezuela and
attempting to politically and economically isolate Cuba,
decided to <a
href="https://www.expreso.ec/guayaquil/costos-pruebas-coronavirus-ecuador-laboratoriosprivados-6959.html">outsource
coronavirus testing</a> to private for-profit
corporations.</p>
<p>Ecuadorian companies are charging $250 to $300 per
coronavirus test — in a country where the minimum wage
is just $400 per month.</p>
<p>At the same time, the repressive Moreno administration
– which violated its own laws in <a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/04/14/lenin-moreno-julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador/">handing
over WikiLeaks publisher and Ecuadorian citizen Julian
Assange</a> to British authorities – has capitalized
on the Covid-19 crisis to push shock doctrine-style
neoliberal reforms.</p>
<p>Moreno announced that he would reduce the already low
salaries of public sector workers, laying off employees,
and slashing the budget of state institutions.</p>
<p>An <a
href="https://twitter.com/RedMaestrxsEC/status/1237827899849351168">Ecuadorian
teachers organization</a> denounced these neoliberal
reforms, declaring in a statement, “Once again, the
government of Lenín Moreno is revealing itself to be
neoliberal and at the service of the large groups of
economic power, and is an enemy and executioner of the
poor majority.”</p>
<p>The response of governments in Latin America to the
coronavirus pandemic shows a clear trend: The closer a
country is to the United States, the worse and more
dangerous its conduct has been. Meanwhile, nations
targeted by the US for regime change and crippled by its
global economic warfare are banding together to protect
the health of the international community.</p>
<p><a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-brazil-cuban-doctors-bolsonaro"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Source URL:
The GrayZone</a></p>
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