[R-G] Ron Ridenour explains Cuba's mission to extend solidarity around the world

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2006 People's Press Printing Society Ltd
All Rights Reserved
Morning Star

June 13, 2006 Tuesday

LENGTH: 1383 words

HEADLINE: Feature - International aid;
Ron Ridenour explains Cuba's mission to extend solidarity around the  
world

BYLINE: Ron Ridenour

BODY:


Cuba's constitution is based on "proletarian internationalism, on the  
fraternal friendship, aid, cooperation and solidarity of the peoples  
of the world."

In the nation's 2004 report to the United Nation's Millennium  
Development Goals, adopted in 2000 by 189 heads of state, it  
demonstrated that it had met three of the eight humanitarian goals  
aimed at eliminating extreme poverty by 2015 and that it was on track  
with the rest.

Cuba's foreign policy is, in fact, based upon the eighth goal:  
"Develop a global partnership for development."

Twenty-five thousand of the nation's 70,000 doctors and several  
thousand other medical personnel are serving in 68 countries. A  
similar number of teachers and technicians serve in a total of 100  
countries.

Cuba is building a medical university in Venezuela. Over the last  
three decades, it has built others in Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia,  
Uganda, Ghana, Gambia, Yemen, Guinea Bissau, Guyana and Haiti.

In addition to providing health care and education, Cuban  
collaborators assist 24 of the most underdeveloped nations with other  
techical advice, aid to HIV victims and sugar.

The export of "human capital," as the state characterises these  
missions, is provided to individual recipients free of charge. In  
most cases, the states which receive Cuba's aid pay in some form,  
such as by bartering oil, other resources and manufactured products.

Cuba's commitment to serving the poor, the sick and victims of  
natural catastrophies is a glaring contrast to the conduct of world  
capitalism led by the US and particularly its current government.

A good example of this is how the governments confronted the damage  
caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the surrounding area.  
Cuba immediately offered to help save survivors with the especially  
formed Henry Reeves International Team of medical specialists in  
disasters and epidemics.

Fifteen hundred medical professionals committed themselves to assist  
Katrina's victims. Each was equipped with 50 pounds of medicines and  
field hospital equipment. These missionaries had an average of 10  
years clinical experience and had served in 43 countries. The Bush  
regime rejected their relief effort.

The Henry Reeves teams were, instead, sent to aid Pakistani  
earthquake victims and Guatemalans affected by Hurricanes Stan and  
Wilma. Seventy-three percent of patients hit by the Pakistan disaster  
were served by these teams.

Most of the 2,500 doctors and paramedics serving for half a year in  
Pakistan have recently returned to Cuba after training 660 Pakistani  
medics and turning over the 32 field hospitals that they brought with  
them.

The Cuban government also donated 241 tons of medicines and surgical  
instruments and 275 tons of hospital equipment. Now 3,000 strong,  
Henry Reeves volunteers are required to speak at least two languages  
and be competent in epidemiology.

This mission's namesake was taken from the US Civil War veteran who  
served in Cuba's first war of independence from Spain. Reeves, a New  
Yorker, earned the rank of brigadier-general. He died in battle in  
1876, after having fought in 400 battles.

"Recognition of Cuban expertise in disaster preparedness and  
response" prompted the UN development programme and Association of  
Caribbean States to select Havana as the headquarters for the new  
Cross Cultural Network for Disaster Risk Reduction, which is to  
facilitate regional co-operation in disaster management, wrote Cuban  
medical journal MEDICC Review in the summer of 2005.

"The world has never witnessed anything equal to this health  
programme," commented St Vicent and the Grenadines Prime Minister  
Ralph Gonsalves upon landing in Havana last February.

Gonsalves had come to thank Cuba for having cured 1,000 blind  
citizens in yet another foreign aid programme, Operation Miracle.

Two years ago, Cuban doctors began applying in 25 countries what  
their associate scientists had created, a simple surgery which cures  
many forms of blindness within two to three days.

A quarter of a million people have already been cured of cataracts,  
retractile disorders, corneal leucoma, myopias and strabismus.  
Another six million Latin Americans so affected are targeted for  
cures over the next decade.

Fidel Castro and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez have agreed to  
provide funds, medicines and medical personnel to treat those  
suffering from these eye afflictions, which are frequently caused by  
malnutrition. Over one million Latin Americans are affected annually.

Cuban medical missionaries carrying backpacks with hospital equipment  
and medicines reach into the far corners of Latin America to perform  
the surgery. In the case of St Vincent and the Grenadines, only a few  
personnel can arrive at a time, in small aircraft, since there is no  
international airport for larger craft.

So Cuba and Venezuela, through their cooperative trade pact ALBA  
(Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America), agreed to build one.

Tens of thousands of blind patients not treated where they live are  
transported to Havana for the surgery. This programme is paid for  
through ALBA. The largest number are from Venezuela, but they also  
come from the entire continent and the Caribbean. Poor blind people  
in the US may apply as well.

Many patients spend a short recovery in spacious top-floor rooms in  
the tall apartment building, Focsa, where I lived for four years.  
Thousands more occupy hotel rooms previously used by the tourist  
industry.

As many as 1,650 patients received eye operations at 20 hospitals in  
one single day, August 20, last year.

Mission Robinson is Cuba's educational humanitarian programme for  
hundreds of thousands of illiterates and out-of-school children in a  
score of Third World countries and in New Zealand.

Besides providing literacy and further education, Cuba also provides  
cultural and sports programmes. Artists and coaches impart their  
knowledge and skills across the globe. It sometimes occurs that a  
sport teams trained by Cubans compete with Cuban teams. The coaches  
often feel double loyalties when it comes to which team they wish to  
win.

In addition to the free solidarity aid that Cuba provides to millions  
of people in their own countries, it also offers free higher  
education, emphasising medical training, to hundreds of thousands  
more at Cuban schools.

International enrollment in Cuban medical schools more than doubled  
between 2004-5 and 2005-6. Thirty thousand students from 30 countries  
are currently studying to become doctors, nurses, dentists, allied  
health personnel and health psychologists.

Ever since the beginning of Cuba's revolution, its foreign policy has  
been oriented to assist all Third World nations, especially in Latin  
America, the Caribbean and Africa, to tear themselves away from  
foreign domination, which keeps their peoples in poverty, ignorance  
and ill health.

The strong voice of President Fidel Castro has been a beacon to many  
of these nations, which have recently been taking heed.

The new and progressive-oriented leaders of Argentina, Brazil and  
Uruguay, along with Paraguay, have formed the regional trade  
organisation Mercosur, whose agenda is similar to that of the more  
progressive ALBA, which now includes Bolivia.

It is noteworthy that Paraguay has joined despite strong protest from  
the US, which is seeking to impose its imperial trade plan, ALCA,  
over both American continents. Paraguay's government has otherwise  
been quite compliant in allowing the US to build military bases aimed  
at threatening progressive Latin American governments and the  
people's guerilla movements in Colombia.

Yet another regional trade plan, CAN, covers the Andes area. Bolivia,  
Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Surinam, Venezuela and even Colombia  
are members.

Mercosur adopted 32 projects, at the end of 2005, amounting to $4  
billion, to be completed in the next five years.

It is the hope of most Latin American leaders and people that  
Mercosur, CAN and ALBA will eventually lead to the formation of the  
United States of South America, bringing an end to US imperialism in  
its "back yard."

- Ron Ridenour is the author of Cuba at the Crossroads and Backfire:  
The CIA's Biggest Burn (Editorial Jose Marti, 1991) two other books  
and many articles about Cuba. To catch up on his continuing series on  
Cuba, visit the Morning Star homepage at www.morningstaronline.co.uk  
or Ron Ridenour's website.