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Republican cruelty on the poor never ends; just gets worse.
Trump puts Cuban doctors in firing line as heat turned up on island economyAfter US allies expel foreign health missions, Havana warns that patients will pay the highest price for campaign against its scheme
Peter Beaumont and Ed Agustin in Havana
Tue 11 Feb 2020 07.00 GMT
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/11/trump-puts-cuban-doctors-in-firing-line-as-heat-turned-up-on-island-economy
(snips)
A Cuban medical programme that has helped some of the world’s poorest communities has become the latest target of the Trump administration’s escalating attempts to pressure Havana’s faltering economy.
Dubbed “Cuban doctors”, the celebrated – if controversial – humanitarian medical mission was founded more than half a century ago in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s revolution, in part to enhance the country’s international influence. Currently active in over 60 countries, the scheme has provided healthcare across the globe, from indigenous Amazon peoples to slum residents in Africa to the victims of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.
Now its work has come under renewed fire via a combination of allegations, led by Washington, which has accused Havana of using the doctors to undermine democracy, not least in Venezuela – which hosts one of the biggest missions.
+++++++++
The US campaign against the Cuban doctors has intensified amid recent political changes in Latin America, which have led to the expulsion of the missions from several countries, including Bolivia and Brazil, where left-wing governments have been replaced by right-wing regimes closely aligned with Trump and Washington.
At the forefront of the allegations is US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who has both depicted the deployment of Cuban doctors in countries from Venezuela to Brazil and Ecuador as sinister interference in their affairs, and congratulated countries – like Bolivia – that have expelled them.
+++++++++
Instead, for Dr Yoandra Muro, until recently the head of the expelled mission in Bolivia, the threats came instead from the new right-wing government that ousted left-wing president Evo Morales. She said they were accused of “being a white-coated army”. “[Towards the end of the mission] the police entered our houses and took belongings of our colleagues. These were the same people we’d been giving healthcare to. It was very difficult to understand how overnight you turn from a doctor into a terrorist.
“We were in 35 hospitals where the majority of our professionals were specialists. This means there are 35 hospitals– where children are being born, where urgent surgery is required – that today don’t have those professionals. “You can imagine the insecurity that they feel. There were lots of patients who cried when we left, that felt the pain of their doctor going, that said ‘what am I going to do now? Who will treat me now’?”
+++++++++
For Kirk, the outlook is worrying. “If Trump gets re-elected all bets are off. The US policy is a continuing process. Death by a thousand cuts.”
Dubbed “Cuban doctors”, the celebrated – if controversial – humanitarian medical mission was founded more than half a century ago in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s revolution, in part to enhance the country’s international influence. Currently active in over 60 countries, the scheme has provided healthcare across the globe, from indigenous Amazon peoples to slum residents in Africa to the victims of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.
Now its work has come under renewed fire via a combination of allegations, led by Washington, which has accused Havana of using the doctors to undermine democracy, not least in Venezuela – which hosts one of the biggest missions.
+++++++++
The US campaign against the Cuban doctors has intensified amid recent political changes in Latin America, which have led to the expulsion of the missions from several countries, including Bolivia and Brazil, where left-wing governments have been replaced by right-wing regimes closely aligned with Trump and Washington.
At the forefront of the allegations is US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who has both depicted the deployment of Cuban doctors in countries from Venezuela to Brazil and Ecuador as sinister interference in their affairs, and congratulated countries – like Bolivia – that have expelled them.
+++++++++
Instead, for Dr Yoandra Muro, until recently the head of the expelled mission in Bolivia, the threats came instead from the new right-wing government that ousted left-wing president Evo Morales. She said they were accused of “being a white-coated army”. “[Towards the end of the mission] the police entered our houses and took belongings of our colleagues. These were the same people we’d been giving healthcare to. It was very difficult to understand how overnight you turn from a doctor into a terrorist.
“We were in 35 hospitals where the majority of our professionals were specialists. This means there are 35 hospitals– where children are being born, where urgent surgery is required – that today don’t have those professionals. “You can imagine the insecurity that they feel. There were lots of patients who cried when we left, that felt the pain of their doctor going, that said ‘what am I going to do now? Who will treat me now’?”
+++++++++
For Kirk, the outlook is worrying. “If Trump gets re-elected all bets are off. The US policy is a continuing process. Death by a thousand cuts.”
Republicans surely are sub-human, as they always attack those with the least voice in order to gain power.
They simply want rampant Western capitalism to occupy and OWN Cuba.......
I hope you folks can read the entire article. It's very enlightening.
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Republican motives are....
* Maintaining control of the Cuban vote in the Miami area (to keep Florida red), and
* To get Western business interests access to Cuba's resources: Oil, nickel ore and forest and farm products.
I personally admire Cuba's resilience to Western pressure although they have a long way to go with human rights issues, which right-wingers don't care about.
KY........
