3202. Bernie Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez Legitimize Regime Change in Venezuela

By Ben Fredericks, Left Voice, February 28, 2019

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Photo: J. Pat Carter)

As the social and political crisis in Venezuela drags on, the fate of the country’s 32 million residents remains uncertain. Elected president Nicolas Maduro remains in control of the country for the time being, but self-appointed “interim president” Juan Guaidó has maintained his oppositional base and continues to bid for power. The conditions for the masses are dire, with food and medical scarcity endemic. For now, the Venezuelan military has remained loyal to the Maduro government, though its allegiance could change.

The Trump administration, for its part, has put forward an array of militarist right-wingers to push “regime change” in Venezuela: Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and the new “envoy to Venezuela,” Elliot Abrams – a man complicit in propping up right-wing dictatorships in Latin America in the 1980s. U.S. forces have linked up with Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Columbia’s Iván Duque to plot Maduro’s ouster.

The hypocrisy of the anti-Maduro coalition’s supposed concern for human suffering could not be more transparent. Not only does the U.S. government support regimes far less democratic than Venezuela (e.g. Saudi Arabia), but the U.S. has its own hand in perpetuating the suffering of the Venezuelan people through the imposition of economic sanctions on Venezuelan oil, the country’s main export. Thus, the U.S. political elites are starving Venezuela of billions of dollars, while making a big show of financial aid amounting to only a fraction of lost oil revenue.

In fact, Venezuela is accepting humanitarian aid. Just not from those governments explicitly trying to kill all remnants of the “Bolivarian Revolution.” U.S. aid to Venezuela is not impartial or benevolent. Rather, weaponized aid is being used to destabilize Maduro and provide a potential material base for Guaidó to manipulate the desperate population toward his ends.

AOC and Bernie: legitimizing regime change

With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s rise to prominence and Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential run kicking off, Venezuela provides an important test, both for them and their supporters on the socialist left. If socialism stands for the interests of the international working class, Venezuela today poses the question: what is a truely socialist, internationalist position? How should we, leftists in the “belly of the beast,” relate to the crisis that our own government has a direct hand in creating?

As many have argued, the most basic position of socialists must be a complete rejections of U.S. imperialism’s attempt to destabilize and control sovereign nations – be it Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Venezuela or elsewhere. As we know from history, U.S. foreign policy has never been about helping the masses take their destiny in their own hands. Rather, the U.S. has helped topple innumerable democratic leftist governments, and has propped up innumerable right-wing dictatorships. Opposing U.S. meddling with the call “Hands off Venezuela!” is essential.

The second basic position of socialists in relating to the Venezuelan crisis must be a revolutionary, anti-capitalist perspective for resolving the crisis. This includes drawing a clear delimitation from Maduro’s government, which has become increasingly repressive. Against the idea that Venezuela’s failure is a sign of the failure of socialism, we assert quite the contrary. The reason of Venezuela’s crisis today is that Chávez’s regime did not really break with national or foreign capitalists, and did not end the dependent character of the country’s economy. Whatever gains were made by the Venezuelan masses under Hugo Chávez should be defended, and the working class must fight for real socialism and a workers government.

Yet Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders have failed both tests. Neither of them have taken a clear stand against U.S. meddling, and neither advocate real socialism.

Ocasio-Cortez, for instance, recorded herself explaining her opinion about the Venezuelan crisis: “People want to make this about ideology, about capitalism, about socialism. What people don’t understand is that this is about authoritarianism vs. democracy in many different ways…” She went on to compare Venezuela to Zimbabwe as “failed states.” Her message? The Venezuelan people need “democracy.”

Indeed Ocasio-Cortez, by remaining silent on the very real U.S. military build-up and the machinations to topple Maduro, gives legitimacy to “the military option” of a coup. By refusing to denounce U.S. meddling, she betrays the interests of Venezuelan masses and provides a left cover for Trump’s exceedingly right-wing goal of regime change. And by vaguely focusing on “democracy,” AOC is giving an approving nod to Guaidó’s pro-imperialist opposition as the legitimate expression of the Venezuelan people’s will – an absurd claim.

Bernie Sanders, for his part, has also jumped on the bandwagon of regime change by calling on Maduro to allow in weaponized “humanitarian aid” and to “respect the opposition”:

The people of Venezuela are enduring a serious humanitarian crisis. The Maduro government must put the needs of its people first, allow humanitarian aid into the country, and refrain from violence against protesters.

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters blasted Sanders on twitter for this statement. “Are you f-ing kidding me?” he commented, “you cannot be a credible candidate for President of the USA. Or, maybe you can, maybe you’re the perfect stooge for the 1%.”

While both Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders would likely oppose a crude military invasion of Venezuela, each in their own way are legitimizing the opposition and remaining deadly silent on the threat of a coup. Neither are willing to truly examine the role of U.S. imperialism or envision a socialist Venezuela. The U.S. left must do better than that.

Hands off Venezuela!

2005. Cuba to Allow Doctors Who Abandoned Their Missions to Return to Country’s Health System

By Cafè Fuerte, Havana Times, September 5, 2015

Cuban doctors in Brazil

The Cuban government took a radical turn in its policy towards medical doctors who abandoned international healthcare missions and moved abroad, announcing on Friday it would allow them to return to their positions within the country’s national health system and grant them employment guarantees.

“The health professionals who, under the terms of the migratory reform, have left the country, be it because of financial, family related or professional reasons, including the victims of deceitful brain-drain practices, will be offered the opportunity to rejoin our national health system if they wish to do so, and shall be guaranteed a position with conditions similar to the ones they previously enjoyed,” an extensive communiqué from Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) published in Granma announced.

Change in Policy

The announcement stems from a significant change in the policy Cuba has applied to medical doctors and dentists considered “deserters,” who were barred from returning to the country for a period of at least seven years and from returning to the island’s medical institutions following the invalidation of their degrees.

MINSAP’s declaration reminded readers that Cuba has been forced to adopt migratory controls and regulations to counter talent theft by the US government since the first years of the revolutionary process, and that this government “has continued to follow its interest to destabilize Cuba through lotteries, selective immigration policies and the Cuban Adjustment Act.”

The note criticized the continued application of the Cuban Medical Professionals Parole Program (CMPPP), established in 2006 to offer health professionals who abandon their missions in third countries refuge in the United States. The program has been the object of complaints by Cuba during the talks that have been held since January of this year to re-establish diplomatic relations and normalize ties between the two countries.

“To achieve this, it relies on agents or activists in places where our medical doctors are working under government agreements, who pressure and offer benefits of every kind to those willing to desert and emigrate to the United States, lured by the promise of a better professional future which, in truth, only a small minority will enjoy,” the communiqué explained.

Stuck in Colombia

The new policy is being announced at a time when hundreds of Cuban health professionals find themselves stranded in Colombia after fleeing their missions in Venezuela and Brazil. Following a period in which the CMPPP ceased to be offered to Cuban doctors, protests from medical professionals and pressure from Cuban-American congress people have again set in motion the granting of regular visas for Cubans over past weeks.

Since the close of August and until this past Friday, the US State Department has granted over 170 visas to medical doctors who requested refugee status through the US embassy in Bogota.

The MINSAP note stresses that the country is willing to consider all possible channels to improve the living and work conditions of Cuban doctors.

“We’re working to provide greater access to information technologies, to allow doctors, among other things, to access the latest articles in different specialties, grant scholarships for study abroad and the learning of new techniques (through itinerant groups), encourage participation at national and international congresses and events so that professionals can divulge their scientific research and share experiences with their counterparts,” the communiqué announced.

Big Business

In addition, Cuba’s sanitary authorities underscored that they will adopt the “measures needed” to ensure medical professionals can improve their skills and can give their best within the profession they chose.

The declaration reported that there are currently 85,000 medical doctors in the country and that the island has the best health professional per capita indicator in the world (7.7 doctors for every thousand inhabitants, or one doctor for every 130 people). The number has gone down to 5.4 with the 25,000 doctors currently working abroad (chiefly in Venezuela).

In total, more than 50,000 Cuban health professionals are working in 68 countries around the world.

The Cuban press, however, has recently alerted authorities about the shortage of specialists and family doctors in the country.

In 2014, the Empresa Comercializadora de Servicios Medicos de Cuba (“Cuban Medical Services Company”) expected to take in more than US $ 8.2 billion through the export of medical services to some 40 countries, making the sector the country’s main revenue source.

1595. Cuba to the Rescue: Ebola-Stricken Countries Welcome Cuban Doctors

By Whitney Eulich, Christian Science Monitor, October 15, 2014

Cuban medical volunteers arrive in Sierra Leone

Cuba has a long history of exporting doctors and nurses, ever since its 1959 revolution led by communist leader Fidel Castro. So when Ebola struck in West Africa, Cuba was quick to step up to the plate. In recent weeks, it has dispatched 165 health workers to Sierra Leone, making it the largest nation-provider of medial professionals working to help contain the epidemic. And it's preparing to send another nearly 300 workers to Liberia and Guinea in the coming weeks. 

More than 4,000 people have died from Ebola and nearly 9,000 have contracted the disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Those numbers are predicted to grow at a rapid pace if Ebola is not contained: WHO has forecast that West Africa could see 10,000 new cases a week by December.

While financial aid and other support like food and security have trickled into the region as the world wakes up to the threat posed by Ebola, human resources are in highest demand. “Money and materials are important, but those two things alone cannot stop Ebola virus transmission,” Margaret Chan, director-general at the WHO said late last month.

The US is the biggest financial donor to the fight against Ebola, pledging $400 million in aid and sending some 4,000 troops to the region. But in terms of trained healthcare workers, its contribution has been 65 uniformed officers from the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, reports The Wall Street Journal. 

Cuba is "punching above its weight," when it comes to the fight against Ebola, reports The Washington Post. The island nation of 11 million isn't wealthy; its GDP per capita is less than one-sixth that of Britain's. 

"The little we have, we share. Our principle resource is human capital,” Dr. Jorge Perez Avila, the director of the Pedro Kouri Institute for Tropical Medicine in Havana, told CNN.

Deploying doctors 
This is the first time Cuban doctors have mobilized to fight Ebola, and Cuban state media reports that some 15,000 health professionals have expressed an interest in traveling to West African nations to help.

Under Castro, Cuba nationalized its healthcare system and inserted a constitutional guarantee of free healthcare for all. As a result, health indicators on the island have greatly improved, reports The Washington Post.

Havana regularly sends medical aid and teams of healthcare workers to nations suffering natural disasters. The Post writes that health workers are “up there with rum and cigars in terms of Cuban exports.”

• Soon after its revolution, Cuba sent doctors to Chile to help the nation recover from a deadly 1960 earthquake.

• Cuba sent 2,500 health workers to Pakistan after an earthquake in 2005.

• 1,500 Cuban health professionals traveled to Haiti after its 2010 earthquake.

• Some 30,000 Cubans currently work in Venezuela’s health system; Cuba is partially paid in oil for its contribution. 

• An estimated 4,500 Cuban doctors are currently supplementing Brazil’s public health system in rural parts of the country or undesirable city neighborhoods.

“We work on malaria, cholera, dengue, a disaster situation, floods in Venezuela, floods in Guatemala, floods in Belize,” Jorge Delgado Bustillo, head of the Cuban Medical Brigade to Sierra Leone, told The Wall Street Journal.

Mixed response to Cuban doctors
Although Cuban doctors are known around the world for their service, their reception abroad is not always warm.

According to The Christian Science Monitor, when Brazil announced its Mais Medicos program, which brings thousands of foreign doctors – including many Cuban – to work in areas lacking medical personnel, there was resistance from Brazilian health professionals.

When the program was announced, the Brazilian Medical Association argued that the country didn't need more doctors and unsuccessfully sued to stop the program, which it called "electioneering." And some warned that the foreign doctors – particularly the thousands arriving from Cuba – were unqualified and coming to take Brazilian jobs….
Criticism is harshest around the arrival of Cuban doctors. Though Cuba has a record of exporting top-notch medical care to places like Venezuela, Honduras, and Haiti, some say the quality doesn't live up to its reputation. They are also seen as victims of the program: "slave laborers" in thrall to the Cuban government.

The program pays foreign governments 10,000 reais (about $4,500) per month per doctor. In most cases that money is then transferred directly to the professionals. However, Cuban doctors working in Brazil have reportedly received a small fraction of this salary, and ended up living on an income below minimum wage. Some Cuban doctors in Brazil have even defected from the program and sought asylum.

In Venezuela, criticism of Cuban care often falls along class lines, with wealthier citizens sharing tales of botched procedures or faulty diagnoses. However, Cuban doctors and nurse mostly practice in slums where the poorest live. In 2005, a reporter for the Monitor saw “first-hand why the Cuban doctors working in Venezuela [were] so effective at creating goodwill between the two countries.”

"I was very impressed by the Cuban doctors and gym teachers and what they are doing for the poor neighborhoods," says Danna [Harman].

Critics charge that the doctors are not really doctors but only medics or nurses, she says. "That may be true, but they are right there in the neighborhoods, they know the community, and they are paying attention to people's problems, which is enough, in many cases, for people to feel better," she says.

For example, Danna was feeling ill and went to a private hospital in Caracas this week. "I waited for almost two hours and was confronted by a rude receptionist and an unfriendly doctor, who told me I needed to go see a specialist - and then charged me a lot of money.

"I wished I'd just gone back to the barrio and checked in with the Cuban medic I'd interviewed for today's story. At least she would have made me feel better psychologically, even if she didn't actually solve the problem.

To be sure, fighting Ebola will take more than a friendly doctor. Doctors were trained by WHO-standards in Cuba before arriving in Sierra Leone. But there were still some cultural issues that needed to be checked upon arrival. 

“They’re a very cuddly people,” Katrina Roper, a technical officer with the UN told The Wall Street Journal. The Cuban professionals were shaking each other's hands and hugging at their welcome ceremony. Ebola is transferred through bodily fluids, including sweat; public health campaigns in West Africa have tried to discourage hugging and embracing. “Tomorrow will be me explaining why they have to stop shaking hands and sharing things,” Ms. Roper said.

1573. In the Medical Response to Ebola, Cuba Leads the World Governments

By Adam Taylor, The Washington Post, October 4, 2014

Cuban health workers leaving for Sierra Leone to help fight ebola epidemic

While the international community has been accused of dragging its feet on the Ebola crisis, Cuba, a country of just 11 million people that still enjoys a fraught relationship with the United States, has emerged as a crucial provider of medical expertise in the West African nations hit by Ebola.

On Thursday, 165 health professionals from the country arrived in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to join the fight against Ebola – the largest medical team of any single foreign nation, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And after being trained to deal with Ebola, a further 296 Cuban doctors and nurses will go to Liberia and Guinea, the other two countries worst hit by the crisis.

Cuba is, by any measure, not a wealthy country. It had a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of slightly more than $68 billion in 2011, according to the World Bank, putting it a few places higher than Belarus. At $6,051, its GDP per capita was less than one-sixth of Britain's. However, its official response to Ebola seems far more robust than many countries far wealthier than it – and serves as further proof that health-care professionals are up there with rum and cigars in terms of Cuban exports.

Cuba's universal health-care system enables such an export. The country nationalized its health care shortly after its revolution, ending private health care and guaranteeing free health care in its constitution. The results have been widely praised. In 2008, evaluating 30 years of Cuba's "primary health care revolution," the Bulletin of the World Health Organization pointed to impressive strides that the country had made in certain health indicators. "These indicators – which are close or equal to those in developed countries – speak for themselves," Gail Reed noted, pointing to a huge reduction in number of deaths for children under five years old and Cuba's high life expectancy of 77 years.

Cuba's health-care success is built upon its medical training. After the Cuban revolution, half of the country's 6,000 doctors fled and the country was forced to rebuild its work force. The training system grew so much that by 2008, it was training 20,000 foreigners a year to be doctors, nurses and dentists, largely free of charge.

Ebola isn't the first time that Cuban health workers have been sent to deal with a global disaster. Even back in 1960, immediately after the revolution, Cuba sent doctors to Chile to help in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, and the practice has continued for decades since. In 2005, Cuba even offered to send medical workers to the United States after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (they were apparently rebuffed).

Reuters reports that Cuba currently has around 50,000 health workers working in 66 countries. Despite the high-profile acts of charity, the medical diplomacy more often seemed to serve more practical purposes – an estimated 30,000 health workers are currently in Venezuela as a partial payment for oil, for example. Exported medical expertise is predicted to net Cuba $8.2 billion in 2014, according to a recent report in state newspaper Granma. There are hopes that medical tourism and exported medical technology could one day provide similar figures.

It's not a simple picture. Critics have complained that Cuba has begun to sacrifice the health of its citizens at home to make money sending medical workers abroad, and the conditions for these medical workers themselves have been criticized – The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year that a significant number of Cuban health-care workers in Venezuela have fled the country to escape "crushing" workloads.

Even so, Cuba's oversized response to Ebola seems to have brushed aside these criticisms, for now at least. The number of Cuban medical staff in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea looks set to be more than those sent from far-larger countries like China. Israel, a wealthier country with a similar population, caused controversy this week when its Defense Minister rejected requests to send medical workers to Ebola-struck countries, though the Foreign Ministry has since announced it would in fact send medical crews.

“Money and materials are important, but those two things alone cannot stop Ebola virus transmission,” Dr Margaret Chan, director-general at the World Health Organization, said last month. “Human resources are clearly our most important need."

1550. 34 Cuban-Trained Belizean Doctors Return Home

By 7NewsBelize.com, September 12, 2014 

Some of the recently graduated medical doctors

Tonight, we have some positive news coming out of the Ministry of health after the bad publicity of multiple vehicle thefts. 34 Belizean doctors have returned from Cuba after 6 years of study. It was a challenging course, but these 34 aspiring medical professionals pushed through - and made it back home with their diplomas. Now, they are getting ready for an internship at the KHMH. Courtney Weatherburne spoke to them today:..

Mr. John Waight, Coordinator, Medical Internship Program
"It is design primarily to help reestablish and relocate Belizeans who have been trained in Cuba through the good offices of the Cubs/Belize agreement to relocate and train these young doctors for work in our settings given that there are differences in practice between practices in Cuba and practice here in Belize. It consist of year of in hospital practice and supervision. There are 4 rotations through the 4 major specialties and there are clinical skills that have to be acquired during that time and a fairly robust and intensive continuing medical education which is what I supervise."

Rahleel Elijio, Practicing Medical Doctor
"My experience being in Cuba for the past six and a half years ago was really a fruitful one. I give thanks for everything that I have learnt in Cuba. Cuba is unlike many other countries, we have been through a lot like the medical system in Cuba is very well organize and it's different in comparison to our system here in Belize. There are two different programs. I was based in the ILAM project which is located in Havana, Cuba and we were actually there for 2 years 4 months where we did our pre-med course where we had to learn Spanish for a period of 4 months and we had courses like basic biochemistry, physiology, histology, embryology and of course Cuban history."

Uldine Wright, Practicing Medical Doctor
"I must say that it was a great experience. I don't think I could have gotten what I got in Cuba anywhere else. The experience that I got is remarkable. I had a lot of clinical experiences. We were given a lot of responsibilities. Ever since the third year we were dealing with patients, we were responsible for patients conduct, management and everything and we were under supervise training, but it was really good. Whatever you put into it that's what you get out of it. I am for the development for the medical services here in Belize because we came from Cuba in which there is a medical office in almost every block and so we are used to having the doctors available for every patient and that's something that Belize needs because there are lots of remote areas that don't have access to medical healthcare as easy as is in Cuba."

Irbin Segura, Practicing Medical Doctor
"On a whole I think that the whole experience has change me s lot. I think it has change all my peers because for one instance Cuba is a very different country to live in and we had to learn to adapt and we had to learn how to cope, how to work as a group and one of the most important things we learnt to me was we learn how to treat patients and not their disease. We learnt to see a person as a whole and to try to help that person to instill in the community and to help the community. That's why I like Cuba, it was a social way at looking at medicine."

They will now fulfill 1 year internship at the KHMH.