Cuban soldiers wearing face masks get ready to
disinfect sidewalks and streets in downtown in Havana, April 15, 2020.
Eliana Aponte/VIEWpress
Cuba has several governmental and healthcare advantages that allowed it to move rapidly in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
But
the pandemic comes at a time of heightened tensions with the US, which,
coupled with Havana's lack of resources, could make it harder to stave
off the pandemic in the long-run.
Some countries seem to be weathering the coronavirus pandemic better
than others. One country that moved rapidly to deal with the emerging
threat was Cuba.
Cuba has several advantages over many states,
including free universal healthcare, the world's highest ratio of
doctors to population, and positive health indicators, such as high life expectancy and low infant mortality.
Many of its doctors have volunteered around the world,
building up and supporting other countries' health systems while
gaining experience in emergencies. A highly educated population and
advanced medical research industry, including three laboratories
equipped and staffed to run virus tests, are further strengths.
Also,
with a centrally planned, state-controlled economy, Cuba's government
can mobilise resources quickly. Its national emergency planning
structure is connected with local organisations in every corner of the
country. The disaster-preparedness system, with mandatory evacuations
for vulnerable people such as the disabled and pregnant women, has
previously resulted in a remarkably low loss of life from hurricanes.
A woman hangs face masks after washing them in her house at Mariel municipality in Artemisa, Cuba, April 23, 2020.
YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images
woman hangs face masks after washing them in her house at Mariel municipality in Artemisa, Cuba, April 23, 2020.
YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images
However, COVID-19 presents differences. Cuba's lack of resources, which hampers recovery from disasters, also contributes to a housing shortage that makes physical distancing difficult. And the island's poor infrastructure creates logistical challenges.Also, the pandemic comes at a particularly difficult time, as tightened US sanctions
have sharply cut earnings from tourism and other services, deterred
foreign investment, hampered trade (including medical equipment imports)
and obstructed access to international finance — including emergency
funds.
Given these strengths and weaknesses, Cuba provides an interesting case study in responding to the current pandemic.
Cuba's reaction to the coronavirus threat was swift. A "prevention and control" plan,
prepared in January 2020, included training medical staff, preparing
medical and quarantine facilities, and informing the public (including
tourism workers) about symptoms and precautions. So when the first three
reported cases were confirmed on March 11, arrangements were in place
to trace and isolate contacts, mobilise medical students for nationwide
door-to-door surveys to identify vulnerable people and check for
symptoms, and roll out a testing programme.
Residents of Havana applaud doctors and nurses battling the new coronavirus, March 30, 2020.
YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images
On March 20, with 21 confirmed cases reported, the government announced
a ban on tourist arrivals, lockdown for vulnerable people, provision
for home working, reassignment of workers to priority tasks, employment
protection and social assistance.
Vice President Pence praised Iowa's response to COVID-19, but the state — which is starting to reopen — is experiencing a rising death toll from the coronavirus.
As issues arose, the Cuban government adjusted its response.For
example, when face-masks and physical distancing proved insufficient to
keep public transport safe, services were suspended and state and
private vehicles and drivers were hired to transport patients and
essential workers. And to reduce crowding in shops, the distribution
system was reorganised and online shopping introduced. Physical
distancing enforcement has also been stepped up in response to instances
of non-compliance.
With 766 reported cases by April 15 (68 cases per million of population), Cuba is around the middle of the range for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Latin America and the Caribbean: reported cases per million, April 13 2020.
World Health Organization
The quality of data varies hugely between countries, with
some governments substantially under-reporting cases. Cuba's reported
cases are based on tests using WHO protocols. Two Caribbean neighbours,
using similar methods, provide useful comparisons.The Dominican Republic, the most closely comparable in terms of
population, income and tourism dependence, shows how the disease might
have spread if measures had been less effective. In contrast, Jamaica
seems to have succeeded in halting the spread of the disease.
Cumulative cases per million, Cuba, Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
World Health Organization
Jamaica's initial response was similar to Cuba's, but
fewer cases had slipped into the country undetected before tourism was
halted. Having identified 16 outbreak clusters now, Cuban authorities
are still struggling to prevent a take-off.What happens next in Cuba will depend largely on the amount of testing. An indicator of commitment to this task is the ratio of tests to reported cases. According to available data, Cuba (with 18,825 tests done)
leads the region with a ratio of 25:1, compared with 16:1 in Jamaica
and 3:1 in the Dominican Republic. (Vietnam and Taiwan have over 100:1,
Germany 10:1, US 5:1 and UK 4:1.) Around 40% of Cuba's recent positive
results are from asymptomatic cases.
If Cuba's contact-tracing and
testing regime gets the disease under control, its experience might
offer lessons for controlling the pandemic, and more of its doctors will
be available to help with the effort to combat the pandemic abroad.
But tests are expensive, at around US$50 each, so if its hard-fought
battle against COVID-19 is prolonged, Cuba's lack of access to finance
could prove fatal. Emily Morris, Research Associate, Institute of the Americas, UCL and Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, UCL This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Do you have a personal experience with
the coronavirus you'd like to share? Or a tip on how your town or
community is handling the pandemic? Please email covidtips@businessinsider.com and tell us your story. Get the latest coronavirus business & economic impact analysis from Business Insider Intelligence on how COVID-19 is affecting industries.
Read the original article on The Conversation. Copyright 2020.
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Cuban journalists report increase in detentions and other abuses of power by authorities
Independent Cuban journalists are calling for support from
international governments and organizations as they report a rise in
detentions and attacks.
The home of the father of Alberto Castaño, administrative director of ICLEP, was also raided, according to ICLEP. (ICLEP)
The Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and of the Press
(ICLEP, for its acronym in Spanish) reported on June 25 that the
community media outlets and journalists that are part of its network are
“suffering the greatest repressive wave that the Cuban regime has unleashed this year, against freedom of expression and the press on the island.”
“The silence of the institutions and organizations that defend the
freedom of expression and press in the world, together with the impunity
with which the Cuban Political Police acts, makes the communicators on
the island more vulnerable and the representatives of the Cuban regime
more aggressive," Normando Hernández, director general of ICLEP, told
the Knight Center.
Combined forces of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) and State
Security took journalist and director Martha Liset Sánchez from
community media outlet Cocodrillo Callejero in the early morning of June
25, according to ICLEP.
Alberto Corzo, executive director of ICLEP and husband of Sánchez,
said the officer who arrived at the offices said “tell me where the
things are that you use to make the bulletins or she goes to prison with
me,” ICLEP reported. When he went to the State Department of Security
Operations, he was only told that his wife was under investigation, the
organization added.
This is one of a series of actions Cuban Political Police allegedly
have carried out against ICLEP media outlets and journalists in the last
six days, according to the organization. Four houses have been raided,
journalistic equipment has been confiscated, and ten journalists have
suffered aggressions including interrogations, arbitrary detentions and
physical and psychological aggression, ICLEP reported.
According to the organization, Alberto Castaño, administrative
director of ICLEP, was released on June 22, 96 hours after the PNR,
Special Brigades and Political Police raided the headquarters of El Majadero de Artemisa, an ICLEP community media outlet.
He reported that the political police are interested in knowing where
the means of production for the ICLEP media outlets are located. Other detentions and summons
Another independent journalist, Osmel Ramírez, who writes for Havana
Times and Diario de Cuba, which are not associated with ICLEP, was
recently released after three days in detention, according to the Havana
Times.
He reported in the publication that the cell he was in, made to hold four people, “was an oven.” He also was previously detained for three days in November 2017.
Ramírez wrote, “According to the State Security, I have no right to
publish about the work of the MININT (The Ministry of the Interior which
they are a part of) or to comment on issues that discredit the country.
That is what they call ‘playing the enemy,’ ‘counterrevolution’ and
called me a ‘mercenary.’”
“According to what they told me in front of my family and then alone,
I would have no more peace. I will be detained every time I write an
article,” the journalist said.
State Security in Camagüey summoned Inalkis Rodríguez, who collaborates with La Hora de Cuba, on June 21, and told her she was accused of painting posters on a co-worker’s house,
reported news site 14ymedio. The site added authorities prohibited her
from leaving the province and country without getting authorization.
As noted by 14ymedio, journalists from La Hora de Cuba are frequent targets of the police.
Senator Rick Scott Condemns Joe Biden’s Support of Cuban Regime
Wednesday, April 29,
2020 WASHINGTON, D.C.
– Today, Senator Rick Scott released the following
statement after Joe Biden claimed he would return to Obama-era policies of
engagement with Cuba
if elected. Senator Rick Scott said, “The Cuban
people have suffered nearly six decades of atrocities, oppression and misery
inflicted by the regime – and Joe Biden’s embrace of Obama’s appeasement
policies toward the Castro dictatorship did nothing to help. The violence,
instability and chaos we see now in Latin America is directly tied to the
oppressive Cuban Regime, which continues to prop up dangerous dictators
throughout the region, including Maduro in Venezuela and Ortega in Nicaragua.
I’ve repeatedly told the story of Sirley Ávila León, a Cuban woman who was
attacked by Cuban security forces in 2015 – after Obama’s failed appeasement
policies. They cut off her hand and stuck her arm in mud to make sure it got
infected. Her crime? She complained that the regime was going to shut down a
school in her neighborhood. “Now, Joe Biden is doubling down on his support for this
ruthless dictatorship, reversing any progress toward freedom in Latin America. That’s not going to
fly with the people of Florida
and all those who have escaped this repressive regime. Instead of pledging his
support for a dictatorship that has denied Cubans their basic rights for far
too long, Joe Biden needs to stand with the people of Cuba as they fight
for their freedom and opportunity.”
“Stay
tuned, there will be more actions aimed at restricting their sources of
income,” said Michael Kozak, acting assistant secretary of state for
Latin America.
The U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba. [Associated Press]
By Miami Herald
Published Dec. 31, 2019
Updated Dec. 31, 2019
The
United States will maintain its “maximum pressure” policy on Cuba in
2020 and is finalizing new measures to further cut off the revenue that
flows into the Cuban government’s coffers, a senior U.S. official told
the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald.
“Stay
tuned, there will be more actions aimed at restricting their sources of
income,” said Michael Kozak, acting assistant secretary of state for
Latin America. “We’re looking for ways to restrict, restrict, restrict
their freedom of action until they change their ways, which is a hard
thing to foresee given their history, 61 years or nothing but repression
and decline.”
The
U.S. launched a “maximum pressure” campaign this year against the
government of Havana for its support of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and
human rights violations of Cubans on the island.
President
Donald Trump authorized legal claims under Title III of the
Helms-Burton Act, banned cruising trips to the island, and limited
remittances. Cuban leader Raúl Castro and his children were sanctioned,
along with other officials and companies, especially those involved in
shipments of Venezuelan oil that keep the island afloat.
Kozak
said the U.S. would push to squeeze further activities that bring
revenue to the government, including the medical services export program
that brought more than $6 billion to the Cuban government in 2018.
“In
terms of the airlines, we have significantly restricted the schedule of
the flights there and, again, we continue to look at other ways to
tighten up the sources of revenue,” the official added.
Trump
critics have questioned the effectiveness of the current policy toward
Cuba. Although the Cuban government has acknowledged that U.S. sanctions
are hitting the economy hard, it has not shown signs of abandoning
Maduro. Instead, Cuban officials have suggested that the Trump
administration intends to damage diplomatic relations and close the two
countries’ embassies, reopened under Barack Obama in 2015.
Granma,
Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper, accused the U.S. chargé d’affaires in
Havana, Mara Tekach, of intervening in the internal affairs of the
country. Cuba’s appointed-president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said in a recent
speech that his government would respond to Washington’s alleged
meddling.
Kozak, a career diplomat who was in charge of
the Interests Section in Havana between 1996-99, declined to comment on
the possibility of a breakdown in diplomatic relations and defended
Tekach’s work “in defense of human rights and democracy” in Cuba.
“U-S.
Cuba relations had not been good since this regime took power 61 years
ago,” he said. “They are back again as they were, in the early days of
the revolution, trying to prop up similar dictatorships around the
world, especially in Venezuela, where you see Maduro guarded by Cuban
bodyguards because he cannot trust his own people, and military
Intelligence penetrated by hundreds and hundreds of Cuban officers.”
“Talking about intervening in somebody else’s internal affairs, I think that’s a pretty good example of it,” he added.
No changes in immigration policies for Cubans
The
embassy in Havana is currently operating with a minimum staff after the
closing of its consular office in September 2017 in response to health
incidents that affected 26 U.S. officials and their families and whose
cause is still unknown, Kozak said.
The
suspension of the issuance of visas in Havana and the restrictive
immigration policies of the Trump administration have made it much more
difficult for Cubans to travel or obtain asylum in the United States.
That situation is likely to continue next year.
Kozak
declined to comment on a bill introduced by Florida Democratic
representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell to reopen the Cuban Family
Reunification Parole Program that has been suspended for more than two
years, leaving more than 20,000 Cubans in limbo. The bill proposes to
conduct visa interviews via teleconference.
“Cubans are
still eligible to come to the United States under the same laws that
apply to every other country in the world,” Kozak said. “Yes, it’s more
difficult now because we’ve had to reduce our consular staff so
radically.”
Although Trump’s foreign policy towards Latin
America has denounced dictatorships in the region, those fleeing from
those governments find significant obstacles in obtaining asylum in the
U.S.
Cuban asylum seekers, like citizens of any other
country, must now wait in Mexico to resolve their cases. Many who
applied before the new policy came into force in May have been waiting
for months in detention centers across the country. And the
administration is finalizing agreements with several Central American
countries for them to take the burden of immigrants, including Cubans,
who cross their territories in their route to the Mexican border.
“Our
asylum system has gotten completely overwhelmed, so we’ve taken these
steps,” Kozak said. “It doesn’t mean people will get sent back to the
place they’re going to be persecuted. They have to wait somewhere else
while they get processed. In that respect, Cubans are being treated the
same as [people from] all other countries.”
Currently,
Cubans must travel to a third country to obtain U.S. visas, after the
withdrawal of most diplomatic personnel in Havana due to several cases
of U.S. officials affected with brain injuries and other symptoms. The
incidents caused a blow to U.S.-Cuba relations, and several U.S.
government officials described them as “attacks” targeting their
personnel in Havana.
But Kozak refused to use that term to refer to what happened in Havana.
“People
suffered physical damage to their bodies. We don’t know how that was
done, or by whom, so we’re not going to speculate,” the diplomat said.
“What we know is that they were injured, and we haven’t gotten
cooperation from the Cuban side.”
-- By Nora Gámez Torres
https://www.tampabay.com
Washington banning US flights to all Cuban cities but Havana
By MATTHEW LEE, MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN and GISELA SALOMON Associated Press |
Posted: Sat 8:47 AM, Oct 26, 2019 |
Updated: Sat 2:57 PM, Oct 26, 2019
MIAMI (AP) —
The Trump administration is banning U.S. flights to all Cuban cities
except Havana in the latest move to roll back the Obama-era easing of
relations, officials said Friday.
Flights to Havana, which account for the great majority of U.S. flights to Cuba, will remain legal. (Source: CNN)
Supporters of the ban said it would starve the Havana
government of cash and limit its ability to repress Cubans and support
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the U.S. wants to overthrow.
Opponents said prohibiting flights would simply
make it harder for Cuban-Americans to visit their families outside the
capital, without making a significant impact on the Cuban government.
The State Department said JetBlue
flights to Santa Clara in central Cuba and the eastern cities of
Holguin, Camaguey would be banned starting in December. American
Airlines flights to Camaguey, Holguin and Santa Clara, the beach resort
of Varadero and the eastern city of Santiago are also being banned.
Flights to Havana, which account for the great majority of U.S. flights to Cuba, will remain legal.
"This action will prevent the Castro
regime from profiting from U.S. air travel and using the revenues to
repress the Cuban people," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on
Twitter. Raul Castro stepped down as president last year but remains
head of the Communist Party, the country's highest authority. .
Another stated reason for the move is to
prevent tourism to Cuba, which is barred by U.S. law. But it is not
clear how many people take the banned flights for tourism purposes. Many
are used by Cuban-Americans visiting relatives in cities far from
Havana by road.
"Eager to punish Cuba's unbreakable
defiance, imperialism is going after regular flights to various Cuban
cities. It doesn't matter that they're affecting family relations, or
the modest pocketbooks of most Cubans in both countries," Carlos F. de
Cossío, head of Cuba's department of U.S. affairs, said on Twitter. "Our
response isn't changing."
Charter flights to destinations outside
Havana are apparently not affected by the ban, but those flights tend
to be more expensive and far less convenient. The other remaining legal
option is a flight to Havana and then a road trip that could last as
much as eight to more than 12 hours over rutted, unsafe roads, in the
case of Cuba's eastern cities.
JetBlue and American issued brief statements saying they would comply with the decision.
The announcement coincided with an
event in Miami calling for regime change in Cuba and featuring U.S.
officials, Organization of Americans States President Luis Almagro, and a
variety of Cuban-Americans and Cuban dissidents.
"This is a step forward," said
Cuba-born barber Ernesto Regues, who said he left the island in 2012 and
still has family in Havana. "Now they need to stop the flights to
Havana."
Carrie Filipetti, deputy assistant
secretary for Cuba and Venezuela in the State Department's Bureau of
Western Hemisphere Affairs, said Havana would serve as the gateway for
Cuban-Americans wanting to see their relatives.
"We want to make sure that
Cuban-Americans do have a route to their families. You need to enter.
Havana is currently carved out for this," she said.
She warned, however, that "we will continue to increase sanctions" and said other countries should do the same.
"It is a long path with many steps along the way," she said to a standing ovation.
Lourdes Díaz, a retired Cuban-American
who arrived in the U.S. one year after Castro's Revolution, said she
disagrees with the current sanctions, feeling they help Cuba's communist
government more than hurt it. Read More Here
CubaBrief: China, Cuba and the Coronavirus; and the Castro regime's crackdown on journalists at home
Yoel Bravo Lopez, a citizen journalist from Villa Clara who last week reported over social media an increase in COVID-19 cases at a retirement home in Santa Clara, was arrested on Monday, April 20, 2020 by State Security, interrogated for several hours, fined 3,000 pesos ($120) and threatened with “going to prison just like Jose Daniel Ferrer” if he continued disseminating information the government considers “contrary to the public interest.” This is not an isolated case. Mónica Baróon was detained on Friday, April 17, 2020 was also interrogated, fined 3,000 pesos ($120) under the Decree Law 370 rule that regulates the use of the internet in Cuba, and also threatened with prison. Mónica Baró Sánchez was awarded the Gabo Prize 2019 for her article ’The blood was never yellow.’ Other journalists targeted in recent days are Yoe Suárez and Waldo Fernández Cuenca, of DIARIO DE CUBA; and Camila Acosta and Julio Antonio Aleaga, of Cubanet. Little wonder that Cuba in 2020 is among the 10 worse countries for press freedom in the world according to Reporters Without Borders.
"The brigade of Cuban doctors and nurses who arrived brandishing a photo of Fidel Castro was perhaps the most warmly welcomed by Italian media and politicians. However, Havana’s medical diplomacy has a complicated history that deserves scrutiny. While the Cuban government touts its international medical program as a show of ongoing solidarity with people in need around the world, more than 100 doctors who defected and filed testimony as part of a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have reported working conditions characteristic of modern-day slavery. According to the complaint, half of the doctors did not voluntarily join the overseas missions, and most had no prior knowledge of where they would be posted. Once the doctors had arrived at their destinations, their passports were confiscated by a Cuban official, nearly all were monitored by Cuban security personnel and asked to pass on information, and between 75 and 90 percent of the salaries paid by host countries was reportedly kept by Cuban authorities."
Meanwhile the Castro regime is engaged in a dangerous marketing campaign abroad, working hand in glove with the Chinese communist regime, to promote a treatment that has not been shown to benefit COVID-19 patients. Worse yet, there is evidence that it can harm them.
WLRN journalist Tim Padgett reported on April 20th that "China has reported some success treating COVID-19 patients with interferon alpha 2B. But communist China has a stake in that success: It’s helping its ally Cuba develop the drug. Either way, most scientists also question alpha 2B as a COVID medicine.'There’s no single clinical trial showing the benefit of interferon [alpha 2b],' says Dr. Alfonso Rodríguez Morales, a Venezuelan who is vice president of the Colombian Association of Infectious Diseases and a leading Latin American epidemiologist."
Two prestigious scientific journals offer an even more cautious assessment that the treatment could do more harm than good. Susanne Herold, an expert on pulmonary infections at the University of Giessen interviewed in Science warns “but the use of interferon-beta on patients with severe COVID-19 might be risky If it is given late in the disease it could easily lead to worse tissue damage instead of helping patients.” The Lancetreported, “In animal models designed to understand the temporal profiles of the SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome diseases, the authors showed that interferon α and interferon β action early in the disease was beneficial, but it was damaging in the later stages.”
Despite this the Castro regime, Mainland China and their ideological allies have pushed Interferon alpha 2b as a “wonder drug”, and even a “a vaccine”. This topic was included in the webinar hosted and moderated by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in the presentation given by CFC executive director John Suarez on April 21st titled "China, Cuba and the Coronavirus: How are Cuba and China connected in the context of coronavirus?" It can be viewed in the embedded video below.
Senior Program Manager, Latin America and the Caribbean
A field hospital set up in a former industrial plant in Turin, Italy. Editorial credit: MikeDotta / Shutterstock.com.
Since late February, Italy has been grappling with one of the world’s most severe outbreaks of COVID-19. To date it has reported the largest number of deaths in Europe, despite extreme mitigation measures including a nationwide lockdown that was imposed on March 10.
This unusual suffering in a wealthy European democracy has drawn the attention of authoritarian powers, which see an opportunity to insinuate the superiority of their systems and the failure of Italy’s traditional allies to come to its aid. The delivery of much-needed supplies and other aid by China, Russia, and Cuba has resonated with the Italian public and fed into a narrative that blames Europe for a lack of solidarity during the crisis. Upon closer examination, however, it is clear that these authoritarian aid initiatives were more about propaganda than solidarity.
Swift, misleading, and self-serving
As the huge number of infections rapidly overwhelmed the Italian health care system, China, Russia, and Cuba promptly responded with concrete emergency actions. China first sent nine medical personnel along with 30 tons of equipment on March 13; additional doctors and supplies arrived in several tranches over the following weeks. On March 22, a Cuban medical brigade comprising 37 doctors and 15 nurses arrived in Lombardy, and four days later the Russian government arranged at least 15 military flights carrying medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, and military medical personnel—including nuclear, biological, and chemical protection troops.
For Beijing, which notably blurred the lines between purchased and donated equipment, the shipments to Italy provided a chance to flip the existing narrative and present itself as a leader in the fight against COVID-19 rather than a censorship-prone contributor to the problem. Official propaganda was accompanied by disinformation campaigns on social media: doctored videos of grateful Italians singing China’s national anthem from their balconies went viral, and tweets using the hashtags #GrazieCina (#ThanksChina) and #forzaCinaeItalia (#GoChina&Italy) were artificially promoted—37 percent and 46 percent of them, respectively, were proven to have been generated by bots. These efforts showed results, with SWG polling data indicating that 52 percent of Italians regarded China as a friend of Italy in March, up from 10 percent in January.
At the same time, Chinese state media outlets manipulated the words of an Italian physician to suggest that the coronavirus originated in Italy and not in Wuhan.
Moscow’s aid program, labelled “From Russia with Love,” also had suspiciously self-serving elements. Given that the donated equipment arrived in military planes and was accompanied primarily by military personnel, many observers suggested that the purpose was to place military agents in Italy, or simply to establish a military relationship that might drive a wedge between Rome and its NATO allies. Sources within Italy reported that up to 80 percent of the equipment flown in from Russia was useless and was being used as a pretext for intelligence operations. After the newspaper La Stampa published reports that were skeptical of the aid packages from Moscow, a spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Defense threatened the journalist and the paper itself in a written statement. Considering the gravity of such open intimidation, politicians from across the political spectrum in Italy denounced the remarks and sought an apology from the Russian government.
The brigade of Cuban doctors and nurses who arrived brandishing a photo of Fidel Castro was perhaps the most warmly welcomed by Italian media and politicians. However, Havana’s medical diplomacy has a complicated history that deserves scrutiny. While the Cuban government touts its international medical program as a show of ongoing solidarity with people in need around the world, more than 100 doctors who defected and filed testimony as part of a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have reported working conditions characteristic of modern-day slavery. According to the complaint, half of the doctors did not voluntarily join the overseas missions, and most had no prior knowledge of where they would be posted. Once the doctors had arrived at their destinations, their passports were confiscated by a Cuban official, nearly all were monitored by Cuban security personnel and asked to pass on information, and between 75 and 90 percent of the salaries paid by host countries was reportedly kept by Cuban authorities.
The long-term democratic response
While the Chinese, Russian, and Cuban missions garnered considerable media attention, Italy’s democratic allies have also begun to provide aid. For example, despite having been hit hard by the coronavirus itself, France donated a million masks and 20,000 protective suits. Germany reserved 85 intensive care beds for Italian patients and delivered seven tons of medical equipment, including ventilators and anesthetic masks. To date, European countries have donated more medical supplies to Italy than has China. Countries including Albania, Norway, Poland, and Romania also sent teams of doctors and nurses to support Italian health care facilities. The United States deployed a makeshift hospital with eight intensive-care units and announced plans to send $100 million in medical supplies. Finally, European Union finance ministers recently agreed on a €500 billion rescue package for member states severely affected by COVID-19, although many details still need to be worked out.
These responses by Italy’s neighbors have been welcomed, but they may have come too late to swiftly correct the false narrative that China, Russia, and Cuba are more responsible and reliable partners. The idea that European allies dragged their feet and failed to show solidarity has been amplified by Eurosceptic politicians within Italy. SWG polling data indicate that trust in the European Union among Italian citizens dropped from 42 percent in September 2019 to 27 percent in April 2020.
Nevertheless, the final outcome of the pandemic will be shaped by the choices made from this point forward. European countries, in partnership with other democracies, should respond to the global emergency by promoting genuine and coordinated efforts to develop and produce vaccines and treatments, to support struggling workers and economies, and to defend themselves against disinformation campaigns aimed at political destabilization and social division. Prompt action is needed to avoid a deeper crisis that authoritarian actors can exploit. Democratic unity based on the values of transparency and accountability is imperative not just for mounting an effective response to the pandemic, but also for preserving freedom at a time of great vulnerability.
A 3,000 Peso Fine for Monica Baro for Texts on Facebook
Mónica Baró Sánchez obtained the Gabo Prize 2019 in the Text category for the report ’The blood was never yellow.’
14ymedio, Havana, 18 April 2020 — After a two-hour interrogation, the independent journalist Mónica Baró was fined 3,000 pesos under the rule of Decree Law 370 that regulates the use of the internet in Cuba. The reporter was summoned despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the authorities’ call for Cubans not to leave their homes.
The fine is called for in Article 68 subsection (i) of the decree, which punishes “disseminating, through public data transmission networks, information contrary to social interest, morality, good customs and the integrity of the people.”
In statements to 14ymedio Mónica Baró said that for her “it is a tremendously vague, imprecise paragraph, and it lends itself, as recent events have shown, to violating the fundamental freedoms of people, whether or not they are journalists, but above all, that of journalists.”
The reporter for the magazine El Estornudo (The Sneeze), who has collaborated with other media such as Periodismo de Barrio, believes that it is also a violation of privacy. “A profile on Facebook is highly personal, although its content is often public,” she said.
In a post that she published on her networks on leaving the police unit where he was questioned, Baró said that the officers showed her as evidence of her “crime” a folder with dozens of sheets printed with captures of her Facebook postspublished over the course of several months.
The reporter didn’t accept the accusation and replied that she was “willing to assume the consequences” of her actions from the moment she decided to become an independent journalist.
“Major Ernesto expected me to say that I was in error, but I did not meet his expectations. Then he sent for two inspectors from the Ministry of Communications, who appeared and immediately spoke to me of Decree Law 370, in particular of subsection ( i) of Article 68,” she added.
The young journalist made clear her disagreement with the fine imposed on her. “I did not want to sign it, nor do I intend to pay it. They explained to me that if I did not pay it, it doubled, tripled, and that the thing could end up in prosecution.”
The officer who identified himself as Major Ernesto told her that “soon” they would see each other again. Baró insisted that she is “prepared for everything” but fears that the next step for the authorities is to go to her home and confiscate her work equipment, a measure that is part of the sanctions established by Decree Law 370.
“And no, I will not stop saying or writing what I think because I receive threats or attempts at intimidation. They will not shut me up. I simply cannot stop being who I am and I am a free woman journalist. Free, first of all.”
Baró Sánchez won the 2019 Gabo Prize in the Text category for the report “The blood was never yellow” and in which she reported on lead poisoning in a community in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, in the province of Havana.
Independent journalist Niober García Fournier also received a fine of 3,000 pesos this week, in Guantánamo, also under Decree Law 370 and after being questioned.
In the midst of the crisis that Cuba and the world are experiencing due to Covid-9, several journalists have been summoned to be questioned by State Security, in a clear violation of the measures announced by the Government, which asks everyone not to go into the street to avoid contagion.
Decree Law 370 establishes extensive control by the Government over the internet. It does this by regulating the use of new technologies, greater supervision over wireless networks, and strict limits on the publication of online content. Violations of these regulations are sanctioned with fines and confiscation of the equipment and means used to published the offending materials.
The entry into force of this decree raised a broad condemnation by international organizations related to freedom of expression, in addition to numerous criticisms from activists and independent journalists, which have created their own news spaces thanks to new technologies.
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Why Is Cuban State Security Going After Independent Journalists in the Midst of the Pandemic?
It is the agents themselves who are perpetrating the crime of spreading the epidemic.
Yoandrys Gutiérrez
La Habana 21 Abr 2020
Journalists Camila Acosta, Waldo Fernández Cuenca and Yoe Suárez. DDC
In little more than 10 days, and disregarding the recommendations for isolation issued to the population to prevent the coronavirus from spreading further in Cuba, State Security has summoned and threatened several independent journalists: Yoe Suárez and Waldo Fernández Cuenca, with the DIARIO DE CUBA; and Camila Acosta and Julio Antonio Aleaga, of Cubanet.
As is often the case, family members were also the targets of threats. In the case of Yoe Suárez, an officer identifying himself as "Captain Jorge", the purported second-in-command of Counterintelligence for the Press, warned him that "the State Prosecutor and Minors may intervene against him", insinuating the that he may be deprived of custody of his two-year-old son. The journalist's mother was also summoned, interrogated and threatened with the consequences that her son could suffer.
Leidys Despaigne Barrero, Julio Antonio Aleaga's wife and a mother nursing an 11-month-old baby, was threatened with deportation to Santiago de Cuba, despite being legally domiciled in the capital, as she is married there. The aim of the intimidation, which Despaigne Barrero has suffered since 2017, is for her to pressure her husband to desist from his journalistic work.
All this is common territory for journalists, opponents and activists. One cannot really say it is any worse right now. Actually, this is a time that State Security could take advantage of to ease up; live and let live, or at least refrain from harassment. Why does it not do so?
The coronavirus is the perfect pretext to restrict peoples' liberties. Now it is not necessary to inform anyone when they cross the border at the airport and enter the country, that they cannot leave it; nor is it necessary to detain anyone on the way to the airport and hold them until they miss their flight. Now it is not just the opposition, activists and independent journalists who cannot travel, but the entire Cuban populace, and there is a good reason for this restriction: the pandemic.
Now, if any journalist, activist, or dissident decides to brave the virus and go out to perpetrate the dangerous "counter-revolutionary activity" of apprising themselves of what is happening, or even just trying to get food, police officers may, conveniently, order them to remain at home, on grounds that are a veritable godsend: the coronavirus.
They no longer need to threaten to accuse them of spreading fake news. Now there is a new and almost irrefutable charge: spreading the epidemic. But, by forcing them to emerge from isolation to obey a summons issued by State Security, the officers are not only endangering those summoned, but all those they come across on the way to the police station, and those who live with them. In other words, it is the State Security agents themselves who are perpetrating the crime of spreading the epidemic, when it would be able to keep their targets uncomfortable right inside their homes.
There could be a kind of truce, thanks to the pandemic. Why doesn't State Security take advantage of this? Why the aggressive stance? Though the Cuban Government scorns even the UN, why continue to spark criticism that continues to, slowly and relentlessly, undermine its credibility around the world, even with people on the left?
In May 2018 DIARIO DE CUBA had access to documents used by the Armed Forces during the 2016 Bastion military exercises, according to which independent journalists were to be the first target to neutralize in the event of massive protests against the government. Is this what State Security has slated for the current circumstances?
The many police officers on the streets, who, judging by the photos of lines to buy food and hygiene products, do not seem charged with ensuring that people keep their distance from each other, is reminiscent of the deployment that followed Hurricane Irma in 2017.
At that time, there were protests across Cuba– in Diez de Octubre, Havana, Carlos Rojas, Matanzas, Morón, and Ciego de Ávila– over the state's slow restoration of basic services.
A lack of water is one of the problems that people in many areas of the country must grapple with. In February 2020, before the coronavirus reached Cuba, residents of Zulueta and Corrales in Old Havana blocked off the streets to demand that the government provide them with drinking water. What could happen now that having water could be a life-or-death matter?
There was already a serious shortage of hygiene products before the coronavirus hit Cuba. If getting soap and detergent before was a question of smelling good, or at least civilized; or being able to maintain a food service business, where hygiene is crucial, now it is a matter of not smelling like a corpse.
If the choice used to be between standing in line for hours to buy food, or starving, now it is a matter of choosing between being killed by the coronavirus, or hunger. You cannot quarantine yourself with an empty refrigerator. You can catch it in a line; sitting at home, you can starve.
If in the months prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus around the world Cuba was going through a crisis very similar to the "Special Period" of the 90s, the end of which has never been officially decreed, what could happen in the country now, with an epidemic; a scarcity of food, water and hygiene products, no tourism, remittances, and with many people not able to work?
What could happen? Nothing, perhaps. Over the course of six decades the Cuban people have shown more apathy, indolence and capitulation than the courage to fight for their freedom and rights. The Cuban government has counted on this thus far, but everything could change. The authorities know this, and fear it. If they cannot avert a major revolt, they will at least try to do damage control – which, in this case, means preventing independent journalists from publishing an article like this one.
Rising coronavirus death toll proves communism kills
A Chinese health
worker checks the temperature of a woman entering a subway station
during the Chinese New Year and Spring Festival on January 25, 2020 in
Beijing, China. (Getty Images)
Communism kills. The Chinese government,
whose “official” statements on the coronavirus outbreak have been
suspect from the beginning, recently “revised” their numbers to indicate
a death toll of 1,381 in total. This includes six health care workers.
One of them was Dr. Li Wenliang, whose official cause of death is listed
as the virus. But the circumstances of his death point to the very
man-made scourge of communist repression.
Dr. Li, who died the first week of February, should be a hero. On December 30, he raised one of the earliest alarms about the coronavirus,
the deadly and previously unknown illness now sweeping China and the
world. He sent an online message to several of his friends and
colleagues, warning them about a quarantine at the hospital where he
worked in Wuhan, the center of the outbreak. At that point, few people
know about the illness. Fewer still knew its danger.
In a free
society, Dr. Li’s honesty would be normal, even lauded. His warning
would have quickly spread, potentially helping millions of people
understand the situation. Public attention would have zeroed in on the
budding crisis, potentially addressing it before the virus could spread.
But in communist China, Dr. Li was treated like a pariah, and his
message was prevented from getting to the people.
The local
authorities summoned him in the middle of the night. They arrested him
then forced Dr. Li to write a “self-criticism” -- a classic Maoist
method of silencing dissenters that forces them to confess supposed
crimes. The authorities shut him up and sent him back to work. They
targeted other whistleblowers, too, instead of devoting their full
attention to the coronavirus’ rapid spread.
The authorities were
acting in the interest of the Communist Party, not the Chinese people,
and that meant keeping their nation and the world in the dark as long as
possible. Yet the Chinese people have paid the price, including Dr. Li.
After returning to his hospital, he contracted the coronavirus from a
patient.
Just over three-and-a-half weeks later, Dr. Li has reportedly died from the illness he tried to expose.
His
tragic death didn’t have to happen. Neither did the more than 560
others have died in the past two months. A further 28,000-plus have
already caught it, from Australia to America. Both numbers are going up
by the day, with no end in sight. Hundreds, if not thousands more, are
sure to die before the crisis ends.
China has worsened this crisis
by doing the only thing it knows how to do: suffocating speech and
strangling speakers. Like all communist nations, past and present,
Beijing suppresses knowledge that officials deem threatening, whether to
their own power, to the integrity of Maoist ideology, or to the veneer
of socialism’s supremacy over other systems of government. The
coronavirus fit the bill, risking China’s economic growth and the image
of the party as an effective authoritarian manager of society. From the
perspective of Beijing, Dr. Li had to be silenced. Indeed, by communist
logic, Dr. Li had to die for the sake of the state.
Xi Jinping and
his communist cadres are learning the hard way that Stalin’s dictum is
not accurate: “Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.” Killing
the messenger does not solve the problem, but it does make others afraid
to talk about solutions.
This isn’t the first time China has
tried to cover up the truth about a public health crisis with disastrous
results. Beijing tried the same approach with SARS in 2003. Officials
waited months to publicly discuss that virus, allowing it to spread
across the southern part of the country, into Hong Kong, and beyond.
SARS killed nearly 350 people in mainland China; at least double that
number will die from the coronavirus. Now, as then, the Communist Party
is letting its own people perish for the sake of its grip on power.
And
they won’t stop with Dr. Li. In recent days, Fang Bin and Chen Qiushi,
two Chinese citizens known for prolifically posting photos and videos
online from inside the quarantine zone in Wuhan, have disappeared.
Fang’s last message reportedly stated: “all people revolt - hand the
power of the government back to the people.”
Sadly, this
phenomenon is not restricted to China. More than 30 years ago, the
Soviet Union hid the truth of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It failed
to order mass evacuations as a radioactive cloud spread over Ukraine,
Belarus, and Russia. Some 20,000 people developed thyroid cancer as a
result.
The current regime in Cuba also puts ideology ahead of its
people’s medical needs. That nation suffers high rates of infant death,
which officials reclassify as deaths in utero to avoid global criticism
and artificially raise the average life expectancy. Rather than devote
resources to saving children, however, Havana sends Cuban doctors to
dozens of foreign countries to spread communist goodwill.
In the
middle of January, as the coronavirus began spreading across the globe, a
Chinese official near the epicenter declared that “politics is always
Number 1.” This logic -- that the good of the Party outweighs the good
of the people -- is the doctrine of every Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist,
and Maoist country in history. Dr. Li Wenliang’s death is a testament to
this truth. To remember him is to remember that communism kills its own
people, even as it endangers the rest of us. Marion
Smith is executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial
Foundation (VOC). VOC is a Washington-based, non-profit educational and
human rights organization devoted to commemorating the more than 100
million victims of communism around the world and to the freedom of
those still living under totalitarian regimes.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Alongside his depiction as a “brutal dictator”, negative
reflections on Fidel Castro since his death on November 25 have focused
on his “mismanagement” of the Cuban economy and the consequent “extremes of poverty” suffered by ordinary Cubans.
This caricature is problematic – not only because it ignores the
devastating economic impact of the United States embargo over 55 years,
but also because it is premised on neoclassical
economic assumptions. This means that by stressing economic policy over
economic restraints, critics can shift responsibility for Cuba’s
alleged poverty on to Castro without implicating successive US
administrations that have imposed the suffocating embargo.
This approach also ignores key questions about Cuba after the
revolution. Where can medium and low-income countries get the capital to
invest in infrastructure and welfare provision? How can foreign capital
be obtained under conditions which do not obstruct such development,
and how can a late-developing country such as Cuba use international
trade to produce a surplus in a global economy which – many claim –
tends to “unequal terms of trade”?
It was the search for solutions to the challenge of development that
led Cuba’s revolutionary government to adopt a socialist system. They adopted a centrally planned economy
in which state ownership predominated because they perceived this
system as offering the best answer to those historical challenges.
But the commitment to operate within a socialist framework implied
additional restraints and complications, particularly in the context of a
bipolar world. My book, Che Guevara: the economics of revolution,
examines the contradictions and challenges faced by the nascent
revolutionary government from the perspective of Guevara’s role as
president of the National Bank and minister of industries.
Literature on Cuba is dominated by “Cubanology”,
an academic school central to the political and ideological opposition
to Cuban socialism. Its emergence and links to the US government are
well documented. Its arguments are that the revolution changed
everything in Cuba – and Fidel (and then Raul) Castro have personally
dominated domestic and foreign policy since, denying Cuban democracy and
repressing civil society. Thanks to their mismanagement of the economy,
growth since 1959 has been negligible. They simply replaced dependency
on the US with dependency on the USSR until its collapse in 1990.
These ideas have also shaped political and media discourse on Cuba.
But the problem with this analysis is that it obstructs our ability to
see clearly what goes on in Cuba or explain the revolution’s endurance
and Cuban society’s vitality.
What did Castro inherit?
Arguments about the success or failure of the post-1959 economy often
hang on the state of the Cuban economy in the 1950s. The post-1959
government inherited a sugar-dominated economy with the deep
socio-economic and racial scars of slavery. Cubanologist Jaime Suchlickiargues that Batista’s Cuba was “well into what Walter Rostow has characterised as the take-off stage”, while Fred Judson
points to structural weaknesses in the Cuban economy: “Long-term crises
characterised the economy, which had a surface and transient
prosperity.” So while one side insists that the revolution interrupted
healthy capitalist growth, the other believes it was a precondition to
resolving the contradictions obstructing development by ending Cuba’s
subjugation to the needs of US capitalism.
Following the revolution, Castro set out to bring social welfare and
land reform to the Cuban people and to confiscate the ill-gotten gains
of the Cuban elite. But when the defeated Fulgencio Batista and his
associates fled Cuba, they stole millions of pesos from the National
Bank and the Treasury. The country was decapitalised, severely limiting
the capacity for public spending and private investments. Wealthy Cubans
were leaving the island, taking their deposits and taxes with them. How
was the new government going to carry out the ambitious socio-economic
reforms without financial resources?
We have to consider these real circumstances at every juncture. For
example, when the US embargo was first implemented, 95% of Cuba’s
capital goods and 100% of its spare parts were imported from the US –
and the US was overwhelmingly the main recipient of Cuban exports. When
the Soviet bloc disintegrated, Cuba lost 85% of its trade and investment, leading GDP to plummet 35%. These events produced serious economic constraints on Cuba’s room for manoeuvre.
Putting a price on poverty
Moving on, we should also ask: how are we to measure Cuba’s poverty?
Is it GDP per capita? Is it money-income per day? Should we apply the
yardsticks of capitalist economics, focusing on growth and productivity
statistics to measure “success” or “failure”, while paying little
attention to social and political priorities?
Ration cards symbolise poverty and shortages in Cuba.EPA/Alejandro Ernesto
Even factoring in its low GDP per capita, the Human Development Index (HDI) lists Cuba in the “high human development” category; it excels not just in health and education,
but also in women’s participation and political inclusion. Cuba has
eliminated child malnutrition. No children sleep on the streets. In
fact, there is no homelessness. Even during the hungry years of economic
crisis of the 1990s, Cubans did not starve. Cuba stuck with the planned
economy and it enabled them to ration their scarce resources.
Yes, salaries are extremely low (as both Fidel and Raul have lamented) – but Cubans’ salaries do not determine their standard of living. About 85% of Cubans own their own homes and rent cannot exceed 4% of a tenant’s income. The state provides a (very) basic food basket while utility bills, transport and medicine costs are kept low. The opera, cinema, ballet and so on are cheap for all. High-quality education and healthcare are free.
They are part of the material wealth of Cuba and should not be
dismissed – as if individual consumption of consumer goods were the only
measure of economic success.
Operation miracle
The specific and real challenges Cuban development has faced has
generated unique contradictions. In a planned economy, with an extremely
tight budget, they have had to prioritise: the infrastructure is
crumbling and yet they have first-world human development indicators.
Infant mortality rates reveal a lot about the standard of living, being
influenced by multiple socioeconomic and medical factors. Cuba’s infant
mortality rate is 4.5 per 1,000 live births, which sits it among
first-world countries – and above the US on the CIA’s own ranking.
It is not just Cubans who have benefited from these investments. Tens
of thousands of Cuban doctors, educators and other development aid
workers have served around the world. At present some 37,000 Cuban doctors and nurses work in 77 countries. They generate foreign exchange of some US$8 billion a year – Cuba’s biggest export.
In addition, Cuba provides both free medical treatment and free
medical training to thousands of foreigners every year. As a direct
initiative of Fidel, in 1999, the Latin American School of Medicine
was inaugurated in Havana to provide foreign students from poor
countries with six years of training and accommodation completely free.
In 2004, Cuba teamed up with Venezuela to provide free eye surgery to people in three dozen countries under Operation Miracle. In the first ten years more than 3m people had their sight restored.
Prohibiting even trade in medicines,
the US embargo led Castro to prioritise investments in medical
sciences. Cuba now owns around 900 patents and markets pharmaceutical
products and vaccines in 40 countries,
generating yearly revenues of US$300m, with the potential for massive
expansion. The sector produces more than 70% of the medicines consumed
by its 11m people. The entire industry is state owned, research
programmes respond to the needs of the population, and all surpluses are
reinvested into the sector. Without state planning and investment it is
unlikely that this could have been achieved in a poor country.
Cuban researchers developed the first synthetic vaccine against a bacteria that causes pneumonia and meningitis.EPA/Alejandro Ernesto
In the mid-1980s Cuba developed the world’s first Meningitis B vaccine. Today, it leads in oncology drugs. In 2012 Cuba patented the first therapeutic cancer vaccine.
The US embargo forces Cuba to source medicines, medical devices and
radiology products outside the United States, incurring additional
transportation costs.
A great example provided by Cuba is that in its poverty it has known
how to share, with all its international programmes. Cuba is the country
with the greatest cooperation in relation to its gross domestic product
and it is an example for all of us. This doesn’t mean that Cuba doesn’t
have big problems, but it is also certain that it is impossible to
judge the success or failure of the Cuban model without considering the
US blockade, a blockade that has lasted for 50 years. Ecuador wouldn’t
survive for five months with that blockade.
Let’s consider the embargo: the Cuban government estimates that it has cost the island US$753.69 billion.
Their annual report to the United Nations provides a detailed account
of that calculation. That’s a lot for a country whose average GDP
between 1970 and 2014 has been calculated at US$31.7 billion.
Yes, Castro presided over mistakes and errors in Cuba’s planned
economy. Yes, there is bureaucracy, low productivity, liquidity crisis,
debt and numerous other problems – but where aren’t there? Castro
pointed to these weaknesses in his own speeches to the Cuban people.
But President Correa is right – to objectively judge Castro’s legacy,
Cuban development and contemporary reforms today, we cannot pretend that
the US blockade – which remains today despite rapprochement – has not
shaped the Cuban economy.
Castro almost saw out 11 US presidents since 1959, but he never lived
to see the end of the US embargo. New challenges face Cuba, with
economic reforms underway and the restoration of relations with the
United States. Next week, I will begin new research in Cuba to assess
the revolution’s resilience in this post-Castro, Donald Trump era.
https://theconversation.com
The home of the father of Alberto Castaño, administrative director of ICLEP, was also raided, according to ICLEP. (ICLEP)
The Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and of the Press
(ICLEP, for its acronym in Spanish) reported on June 25 that the
community media outlets and journalists that are part of its network are
“suffering the greatest repressive wave that the Cuban regime has unleashed this year, against freedom of expression and the press on the island.”![The U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba. [Associated Press]](https://arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tbt.s3.amazonaws.com/public/ZQM46MWISYI6TIRQPAY4DVT77I.jpg)
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