The Truth about Cuba’s Medical Internationalism 

This week, the Trump administration banned any flights to Cuba, except those landing in Havana. In June, the State Department banned cruise ships from visiting Cuba. This latest development follows on the heels of the most recent propaganda offensive against Cuban doctors. This is a teachable moment for those wishing to understand the historic role Cuba medical internationalism has played in the oppressed countries of the world.  

The latest, sensationalist anti-Cuba headlines attack the country’s well-known, international medical missions with vague, vulgar allegations. More slander. More propaganda. Nothing new. Not once in the past 60 years, since Cuba’s triumph over neo-colonialism, has the capitalist press pronounced a positive or friendly word about Cuba. 

Hellbent on overthrowing a government that represents the 99% of Cuba, the corporate media resorts to outright lying. Progressives the world over must contextualize this latest defamation within the context of the unrelenting U.S. military, economic, diplomatic and media war against the island only ninety miles away from Miami.  

What is it that the U.S. fears so much that they spread this misinformation? An International Journal of Health Services published a survey of Cuban international medical missions: 

“Since the early 1960s, 28,422 Cuban health workers have worked in 37 Latin American countries, 31,181 in 33 African countries, and 7,986 in 24 Asian countries. Throughout a period of four decades, Cuba sent 67,000 health workers to structural cooperation programs, usually for at least two years, in 94 countries.”  

Thousands of Cuban doctors volunteer every year across the most forgotten and exploited countries. In Africa, they are known as “the peaceful Cuban army of doctors in white coats.” What other country in the world has made comparable, selfless sacrifices?

While the U.S. exports F15 jets, deadly, polluting military hardware and more wars of recolonization and destruction, Cuba exports doctors, medical supplies and healthcare. 

Cuba’s medical internationalism is, of course. incomprehensible to The Miami Herald, Univision and the gamut of mainstream media outlets who see everything and everyone through the prism of profits. Ignoring the decades-long contributions of Cuba’s medical solidarity, they harp on one supposed informant who alleges that she reported more patients than she saw and invented phony diagnosis. Without any proof, The State Department followed suit, stating: “Profiting from the work of the Cuban doctors has been the decades-long practice of the Castros, and it continues today.” 

These propagandistic outfits create sensationalist headlines in hopes of discrediting Cuba’s medical missions and further isolating the island economy. Reuters reported that the U.S. recently blocked the Cuban Health Minister entry to participate in a conference in Washington D.C. These unilateral decisions have nothing to do with medical ethics and everything to do with U.S. geopolitical interests. Every year in September all the countries of the General Assembly gather at the United Nations and vote to end the blockade against Cuba. Yet, the U.S. vetoes the popular vote even though they have no support, except from Israel. The vote this year was 189 countries against the blockade and two for it. The U.S. employs a similar strategy against Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and any country that dares to exist outside of their sphere of influence. The unity of oppressed countries is what the U.S. ruling class most fears.

Historically, Cuba’s global contributions have not just been in the medical field. Cuba: An African Odyssey documents how half a million Cuban troops served in Africa’s Liberation Wars from Portuguese, French and other Western Countries’ Colonialism. Again, how incomprehensible this all must be to a military whose raison d’etre is to invade, occupy and pillage resource-rich countries i.e. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and beyond…

Trump — the CEO of the United States of America — is worth over $3 billion dollars. This would never be allowed in Cuba. Trump’s wealth — swindled from his massive real estate holdings — would be seized and redistributed in Cuba to meet everyday people’s educational, medical and transportation needs. This is why the elites of the U.S. will never forgive Cuba.  The U.S.’s blockade has done everything to prevent Americans from visiting the island of eleven million and seeing Cuba for themselves. For decades, harsh laws have threatened to jail any American citizen for ten years and or fine them $100,000 for the “crime” of visiting Cuba. While the Obama administration sought to slightly lessen the noose around Cuba’s neck, Trump has promised to tighten it again. The Bigot in Chief has promised to put an end to the Cuban system once he has finished with Venezuela and Nicaragua.

The critical viewer is not fooled: the latest media, diplomatic, economic and military aggression is the latest phase of a wider campaign to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.