Online at: http://politicalaffairs.net/article/view/4997/1/247/

Bush's Plan to Undermine Cuba: A Monstrous and Wicked Worldwide Attack on the Poor

By Alberto N. Jones

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2007 – online

March – April 2007

Mar. 12 – Mar. 18 click here for related stories: Cuba solidarity

3-14-07, 9:02 am

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Before believing my eyes, I had to read twice “US program for defecting Cuban doctors a success”, written by Mr. Pablo Bachelet and published in the Miami Herald on 3/11/07.

Anyone else around the world, except the ultra-right-wing Cuban-American community in Miami, the neo-cons in the United States that got us into the Iraq quagmire and those that are part of President George W. Bush administration, would be sickened to their stomach, by the simple thought of such a monstrous conspiracy, not aimed against their hated Cuba, but against the poorest individuals in the world, that for the first time since the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, have a physician take a look at their ailment, treat them and save them from a potential deadly pathology.

Months ago when the US State Department concocted this brutal plan, geared to encourage Cuban physicians working in poor neighborhoods in third world countries around the world to leave their patients, defect and share the wonders that the United States had to offer, most people in the health field dismissed the idea, as too inhumane, too morbid and cruel to be true.

And today, the Miami Herald shamefully displays and article written by one of their hired pens in this increasingly immoral and undignified world, where, rather than denounce and reject such a treacherous act, they praise and joyfully encourage more of the same.

Ironically, this abominable aggression is taking place as most of us are glued to our TV sets, horrified by the revolting spectacle of another monster, punching a defenseless 100 year old lady outside her apartment and stealing her money. This gruesome spectacle remind us of many others; be it Jeffrey Dahmer dining on his victims, Ted Bundy or the Son of Sam killing and dismembering their victims and the never-ending list of pedophiles, raping and killing their innocent victims, leaving us to ask why?

Still, contrary to what most of us are made to believe, these known criminals that are caught, hauled off to jail and sanctioned accordingly, pail in comparison with the real criminals and mass murderers among us, disguised as moralists, educators, clergy, business people, social workers or political leaders in our communities, who devote the best of their intellect to devise these destructive methods of silently killing, thousands and thousands of people they have never seen, have done them no harm and whose only crime is not to adhere to their deranged, philosophical views of the world.

The great tragedy of these sick minds, is that these monsters knows, they cannot change the course of history, that their abuses and crimes against the majority of the world is coming to an end and their only hope is to raise the price, increase the suffering and attempt to slow down an irreversible social change, which is no different than the one that was waged hundreds of years ago by Spartacus and many more.

They know that by bribing 100, 1000 or 10,000 Cuban doctors to defect, will have no effect Cuba or alter this humanitarian program that the entire world should applaud and support. The only things they are capable of doing, is to hurt the victims, increase hunger and hasten death of the sick.

As someone who lived through a similar bestiality, to which these individuals seems to be genetically predisposed, I can attest to what life was like in Banes, Cuba, for thousands of emigrants from the English Speaking Caribbean Islands and Haiti, lured to Cuba by the United Fruit Company as cheap labor.

In charge of implementing and enforcing vicious racist and segregationists laws, was Dr. Rafael Diaz Balart, recently honored by the US Congress and Florida International University, by giving his name to one of their buildings. His meritorious curriculum was later followed by his son, Dr. Rafael Diaz Balart, father of Florida US Congressmen Mario and Lincoln Diaz Balart, both born again humanists and staunch supporters of these cruel measures.

In our community, “on the other side of the tracks”, we were forced to live in thatched shacks without electricity, running water, jobs, schools or their preferred weapon of subjugation: Healthcare! What we did have, was rampant infant mortality, hunger, hundreds of deaths through preventable diseases and the infamous gully with its putrid effluent, running through our community spreading disease and deaths.

With the mass media at their disposal, they will continue to do what they have practiced since time immemorial. They will attempt to discredit this and other factual statements about their murky past and repugnant present. Everyone who reads this testament is invited, not to believe it, but to visit the cemeteries in Banes, Naranjo Dulce, Marti, Baguanos, Chaparra, Baragua and tens of others Cuban Soweto’s, large and medium size cities across the country and please, take the time to read what is engraved on the crosses and headstone, all of which are mute indictments of their horrendous past.

The world needs to know them! They assume that all of those they abused, vilified or caused the death to their family members or neighbors, are still illiterate, unable to speak for themselves and remind them of their deeds. Wrong!

I remember and denounce, when mothers with children knocked on doors every night, asking for your left over, as their only meal.

I remember when a family member was ill, you did not go to the hospital, and you went to the home of one of these “powerful” individuals and pleaded for a note written by them, if you were to be admitted to the hospital.

I still remember when we were branded at birth, our future decided and were not allow to work in department stores, office settings or drive a Greyhound-type bus, while boys at the age of 12 or 13 went to the fields and girls the same age, became maids.

I remember when the Public School System in Cuba provided a hot cup of chocolate, a couple of crackers and a bonus on Fridays, consisting on a slice of white cheese, knowing that most students had nothing to eat except this hand-out. Shortly after Batista’s coup d’etat, the cheese disappeared, the chocolate followed suit and one day, they came by collecting our aluminum cups! Some of the executioners of these brutal violations of children rights and their descendents are now leaders in many anti Castro Human Rights, Religious and Social groups in south Florida, tearfully decrying the plight of those living in Cuba. What a bunch of hypocrites!!

The criminal actions that we see taking place today against the poor, forgotten and ignored around the world, be it in Venezuela or Bolivia, South Africa or Angola, Pakistan or East Timor, are propelled by the same anti-human forces of destruction, that were committed against the natives when the Spaniards, English, Dutch or Portuguese arrived on these shores.

We saw what they did to the enslaved and after “freedom” were granted; we saw their segregationists and racist policies. We saw it against the government of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Cuba after 1959, Ghana, Congo, Egypt, Panama and even tiny Grenada, with fewer guns than any neighborhood in Miami.

If these individuals were honest in their beliefs, if they were really preoccupied about the wellbeing of anyone in need of healthcare and/or they realized their system was incapable of producing the personnel they need; stealing healthcare professionals from the poorest, most vulnerable people on earth, could never be explained or forgiven.

But this heinous, horrendous and criminal act gets even worse, if we knew, that prior to the State Department enacting this monstrous regulation under the guise of the “Cuban Adjustment Act“, which allows Cubans residing in the United States to claim family living in Cuba, over 500 Cuban physicians had already defected and wore doing all sorts of menial jobs in Florida and elsewhere, in order to survive.

Why did the US State Department not hire these same Cuban physicians that are in the country and have them take care as Nurses, Nurses Aide, Therapists or in whatever healthcare capacity they could fit and put them in the now infamous Building 18 across from Walter Reed Hospital, where those who gave their limbs, minds or charred bodies to an unjustifiable war of choice, were left in leaky and moldy rooms, shared with roaches and rats.

Why have we not relocated some of these physicians and some of the ones we are now enticing to defect, to offer their services in Ward Nine in Louisiana or Mississippi devastated by Katrina and who are still without Medical care?

Why not create a Healthcare Peace Corps and send them to offer adequate healthcare in Overtown in Miami, Cabrina Greens in Chicago, Parramore in Orlando, NW Jacksonville, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, where millions of people are deprived of this basic means of survival?

Forty-five years ago, the US State Department devised a similar plan, that successfully encouraged 3500 or 50% of Cuban physicians to abandon their country, creating a healthcare emergency, suffering and deaths of hundreds of victims, when Cuba had only one University to train their replacement.

Unfortunately for Mr. Mc Carry, Mr. Shannon, Dr Condoleezza Rice and the rest in the chain of command of this despicable act, that for them to achieve the same results of 1964, they must now encourage to defect 40,000 Cuban physicians, destroy 22 Medical Schools and Cuba would still have a higher ratio patient/physicians than Washington DC.

The advantage that the State Department, the Cuban American National Foundation, terrorist organizations in Miami specializing in putting bombs in airliners, hundreds of counterrevolutionary groups bent on the destruction of Cuba, the Helms-Burton and Torricelli Bill and the Embargo itself will always have, is a horde of hired minds and pens, willing to distort the facts, lie to the American people and the world, millions of dollars at their disposal and tens front organizations attempting to divide and corrupt the Cuban people, a small army of salaried “dissidents” in Cuba under the guidance of the US Interest Section sending bogus e-mails and talking on Radio and TV Marti that is heard and listened to by a handful of Cubans and thousands of individuals in Miami and elsewhere, that are shamefully making millions of dollars on services that are 30, 40 or 50 times more expensive for our families, thanks to a moribund embargo that will never achieve its goal, that has been with us for half a century.

--Dr. Alberto N. Jones is Editor of The Cuban Nation and Director of the Florida Association of Hispanic Journalists.