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Cuban Heroine and Heroes

The courageous are welcomed with pride

The courageous are welcomed with pride
Towns arcross the country, spirited residents greeted Cuban doctors and nurses returning home after supporting the COVID-19 battle in Italy

National news staff June 22, 2020 14:06:10

Cuba was obliged to wait a while to embrace our heroes, who spent two weeks in quarantine before heading home.

Photo: Radio Guantánamo
In several towns around the country, spirited residents greeted health professionals from the Henry Reeve contingent returning home after supporting the COVID-19 battle in the Italian province of Lombardia.

Cuba was obliged to wait to embrace our heroes in white lab coats, who spent two weeks in quarantine after returning from Italy, before heading to their neighborhoods and communities for a warm welcome.

AN UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCE

Ronniel Montejo Aldana, a pulmonologist, described the experience in Lombardy as unforgettable.

It was very satisfying, encouraging in all ways, something that will be on our minds for a long time, stated the young doctor, who works at the Mario Muñoz Monroy Military Hospital in Matanzas.

During the welcome he received at provincial government headquarters and, especially in his neighborhood, in the Guanabana People’s Council, Montejo shared the satisfaction he feels having saved the lives of a people in need, who sought the help of Cuban doctors.

He recalled several anecdotes to illustrate the struggle against the deadly epidemic in that country, where today the people are grateful for the solidarity of a small nation like Cuba, blockaded by the United States government.

They are extremely affectionate when they talk about Cubans and our altruism, the doctor reported, emphasizing that they worked hard but always had the support and gratitude of the population.

Maikel Manuel Hernández Hernández, another doctor from Matanzas who offered his services in Italy, also received an emotional greeting organized to honor him in his hometown of Calimete.

Moved by gratitude to Cuban medicine and the moral strength of our professionals, more than a few residents of the neighborhood could not hold back the tears. Dozens extended their arms to embrace Maikel, to show their affection and respect.

The willingness to travel again to any place on the planet that needs Cuban medical collaboration was reiterated in Santa Clara by the three nurses from Villa Clara who confronted the new coronavirus in Lombardy, and were welcomed home by Yudi Rodriguez Hernandez, president of the Provincial Defense Council. Continue reading The courageous are welcomed with pride →

BLACK LIVES MATTER

Racism and police violence are not the fault of the system. They are the system!

Racism and police violence are not the fault of the system. They are the system!
Cuba participates in UN Human Rights Council meeting on racism, proposed by African nations in the context of massive protests in the United States

International news staffjune 18, 2020 11:06:58

Protester confronts a member of the National Guard on a Minnesota street. Photo: AP
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla condemned “all manifestations of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia,” in a June 17 tweet.

Reporting that Cuba would join debates of the 43rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), he called for a fight against discrimination based on skin color or ethnic origin, and noted “In the U.S. 22.2% of COVID-19 fatalities are African Americans, although they are 12.7% of the population.”

The pandemic has exacerbated social inequalities and shown the shortcomings of a system in which the poor and minorities are left unprotected, the Foreign Minister stated.

During the resumed session of the CDH on June 15, African countries proposed to organize an urgent debate on racism and police violence, within the context of the global mobilization generated by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in the United States.

“Almost two decades after the Durban World Conference, the scourge of racism, discrimination and xenophobia continues to advance in a world that is increasingly unequal and involved in multiple and complex crises,” said Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, Cuba’s ambassador and permanent representative in Geneva, speaking at the meeting, the Foreign Ministry reported.

Referring to Floyd’s murder, Pedroso stated that this was not an isolated case, but a consistent saga of human rights violations based on skin color and ethnicity, underpinned by centuries of structural racism, profound economic inequality, which perpetuate that country’s political, social and legal system, founded on slavery, elite privilege and dispossession of the majority.

The reality,” the Cuban diplomat said, “is that racism and police violence against people of African descent and minorities are not exceptions or errors of that system. They are the system!

He concluded his remarks by reiterating the call to implement the Durban program, and to take action to ensure, at last, that all persons are treated as equals, adding that Cuba can always be counted on in this noble effort.

The country will present three draft resolutions at the session, on the impact of foreign debt on human rights; the right to food; and cultural rights, according to the permanent Cuban mission in Geneva.

Cuban Medical Brigades

Without preaching, our actions speak for themselves

Cuba answers slander with more solidarity
With another medical brigade departing, this time, to the Turks and Caicos, Cuba shares what we have, as a matter of principle. Without preaching, our actions speak for themselves and are understood by people of goodwill around the world

Nuria Barbosa Leónjune 16, 2020 10:06:18

Photo: Juvenal Balán
It is unlikely that an island country like the Turks and Caicos, barely visible on a world map, would make headlines in the corporate media. Even less so when the news involves Cuban solidarity, inconvenient for the powers that be, capitalist governments that consider healthcare just another commodity.

This tiny archipelago is home to a people who cannot escape the dangers of the pandemic and need help. They have requested it, and Cuba has stepped forward to provide it again, without calculating the cost, paying no attention to the mercenary slanders about our “enslaved” doctors who risk their lives to save others.

This time the brigade includes 20 doctors and nurses, departing for this small nation just as they have traveled to larger, well-known countries. Readers may recall that, when uncertainty about the new coronavirus was at its highpoint, the first Cuban medical brigades joining the COVID-19 battle around the world went to sister Caribbean nations.

This is what makes the U.S. government uncomfortable. The country where the pandemic has taken the most lives is leading the absurd campaign against our efforts, while the world, which is not blind, is proposing our Henry Reeve Contingent for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Organizations within the United States are raising the tone of the nomination, to promote an international campaign, supported by prestigious intellectuals, artists, political leaders and ordinary citizens from all over the world.

Continue reading Without preaching, our actions speak for themselves →

Cuban President (ALBA-TCP)

President Miguel M. Díaz-Canel Bermúdez

These hard times motivate us to continue working united, with more cooperation and agreement
Remarks by Miguel M. Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, President of the Republic of Cuba, during the high-level online conference of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) to discuss the post-pandemic economy, June 10, 2020, Year 62 of the Revolution
Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdejune 11, 2020 12:06:50

Photo: Estudios Revolución
(Transcript: Presidency of the Republic)
Dear President Nicolas Maduro Moros;
Distinguished heads of state and government;
Heads of delegations;
Esteemed economic authorities from Alliance countries and guests accompanying us:
I would like to begin by thanking brother President Nicolas Maduro Moros for convening this ALBA-TCP Economic Conference.
Urgently needed are the exchange of experiences and agreement on positions to confront together the effects of COVID-19, a pandemic that threatens to significantly deepen the multi-sectoral crisis suffered by our societies, particularly in the economic field.
Although a global impact is foreseen, no one disputes the fact that those who will suffer most from the consequences of the crisis are nations of the South, since the heavy burden of underdevelopment and debt is compounded by unilateral coercive measures to which some of us are subjected, in the context of an unjust international order, which compromises the sustainable development of our peoples.
Since the beginning of the year we have witnessed a painful type of global political economy.
Every ship to which ports have been closed; every plane that has not found a landing strip; every infected person who has been asked to pay for treatment; every financial speculation to gain advantage in obtaining medicines or protective wear that everyone needs; every unanswered request for help; every dead body without a marked grave – all tragedies that we have learned about through the most diverse means – is an expression of the self-interest and injustice of the economic models of a system whose sole purpose is to enrich minorities at the expense of the majority’s suffering.
Incredibly, the over-developed world, the one that steals talent and dazzles with the brilliance of sophisticated productions, has shown itself incapable of using its enormous resources to build a global front against a pandemic that can only be overcome with two forces within everyone’s reach: cooperation and solidarity.
In developed nations of the European Union, which have been terribly hit by the pandemic, many people speak of separation from the bloc because they feel that community integration has not worked during the emergency. What could be an added strength for economically strong countries has become a weakness in the perception of many citizens, due to fundamental ethical deficiencies.
Today we can clearly see the differences between governments that have defended and strengthened the state as a guarantor of social stability and those that, driven by neoliberal theories, have reduced its role, cutting social benefits, public health services and scientific research.
China, with its effective response to the epidemic in the world’s most populous country, and its contributions to the World Health Organization and other nations, has demonstrated the difference. Even those who speak contemptuously of a “Chinese virus” have been helped by the great nation’s practice of solidarity.
On the other hand, governments presumably very effective in integrating their markets, their finances, their troops and even in organizing extra-regional invasions, failed to coordinate efforts to save their own citizens.

Continue reading President Miguel M. Díaz-Canel Bermúdez →