Maybe after three or four years, when the USA bottoms out and takes
its place among the rest of the Banana Republics, maybe then Cuba will
send us some doctors to bind our wounds.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/18/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2016/8044/804451.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 44 November 21, 2016
In face of US embargo, Cuba led the fight
against Ebola
BY SETH GALINSKY
UNITED NATIONS — In an Oct. 26 speech to the U.N. General Assembly,
Ambassador Samantha Power explained why, for the first time in 25 years,
Washington was abstaining on the annual resolution condemning the U.S.
embargo of Cuba. Washington’s 55-year economic war against Cuba had
isolated the U.S. government, not Havana, she said.
As part of sugarcoating U.S. imperialism’s hostility to the Cuban
Revolution, Power cited Cuban-U.S. cooperation in the fight to combat
the Ebola epidemic in 2014. Three thousand U.S. personnel went “to the
epicenter of the outbreak,” she said, cynically adding that “President
Obama also set about rallying other member states to do their part,” and
that “one of the very first countries to come forward was Cuba.”
In his speech, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez noted that when
Cuban health workers were risking their lives treating Ebola patients,
their work “was hampered” by the embargo because “even under such
extreme circumstances” Washington blocked necessary fund transfers.
That’s just one example of how Power twisted reality on its head.
On Sept. 12, 2014, World Health Organization Director General Margaret
Chan said there were only 170 foreign heath care workers combating Ebola
in West Africa. That day Cuba’s Public Health Minister Roberto Morales
announced that Havana was sending 165 volunteer doctors and nurses to
Sierra Leone. The number of Cuban internationalist volunteers fighting
Ebola in West Africa rapidly grew to 256, more than from any other country.
While Cuba sent doctors, the U.S. Peace Corps evacuated all its
personnel, including health education workers.
Cuba’s announcement put pressure on much wealthier governments. Soon
after, Barack Obama said Washington would send military engineers as
well as teachers to train health care workers in Liberia. The Cuban
government from the start welcomed any U.S. contribution to the effort
and offered to work together any way they could.
And the 3,000 U.S. personnel that Power bragged about?
They were mostly soldiers who did not treat a single patient. Instead,
they were sent to build as many as 17 treatment centers — but only
completed 10, some so late they were no longer needed.
Even capitalist dailies could not ignore Cuba’s leading role. The U.N.
“is calling for nations to dispatch doctors and nurses to West Africa,”
the Oct. 9, 2014, Wall Street Journal reported. “Few have heeded the
call, but one country has responded in strength: Cuba.”
Meanwhile, Rodríguez noted, Washington continues to promote “the
shameful ‘Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program,’” trying to get
Cuban doctors and nurses to abandon internationalist missions and move
to the U.S.
Related articles:
Cuban artists in UK: ‘Art isn’t a privilege, it’s a right’
‘A ‘revolutionary’ who doesn’t behave as such is a charlatan’
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