21138: A real humanitarian intervention: Cubas doctors without borders (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

A real humanitarian intervention: Cuba's doctors without borders

http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/commentary/07_cuba.html

April 5, 2004
Derrick O'Keefe

Several years ago, between coup d'etats and U.S. occupations of Haiti, Fidel
Castro called for a foreign invasion of Cuba's Caribbean neighbour, stating
that "Haiti does not need invasions of soldiers, it needs an invasion of
doctors, and Cuba is ready to give this aid." The first Cuban medical
battalion was dispatched to Haiti after a 1998 agreement, and they have
remained in the trenches, often in the most remote parts of the western
hemisphere's poorest country, providing a compelling example of
internationalism and an alternative to humanitarian interventions by 'smart'
bombs and bayonets.

The March 6 Dallas Morning News reported, somewhat incredulously, that at
the height of the violence that accompanied the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, all but one of the hospitals and clinics in Port-au-Prince were
closed, a makeshift emergency room operated entirely by Cuban doctors.
Haitian hospitals closed, and Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups
stopped providing services, citing the dangerous conditions.

The 535 Cuban medical volunteers in Haiti have been instrumental in
supplementing a woefully inadequate health care system. It is estimated that
over the last 5 years, Cuban doctors have treated over 5 million Haitians.
And with 90 per cent of the country's mere 2000 doctors operating in the
capital of Port-au-Prince, the Cubans have been providing the bulk of
services in the rest of the country. Observers have indeed pointed to this
Cuban intervention as one of the reasons for the zealous desire of some in
Washington to oust Aristide, despite the populist's largely orthodox,
neo-liberal economic policy since the Marines restored him in 1994. The
Haitian president, after all, had the temerity to restore diplomatic
relations with Cuba in 1996. The regime change in Haiti is indeed related to
the 40-plus year drive to isolate and eliminate the Cuban Revolution.

Haiti, though, is but one recipient of volunteer Cuban doctors, tens of
thousands of whom have worked throughout the Third World over the past four
decades. In 1998, the Cubans sent hundreds of volunteers to Central America
to help in the wake of Hurricane Mitch's devastation. They also initiated
the Latin American Medical School, which provides free education for
thousands of students from throughout the Americas, including about 50
economically disadvantaged students from the United States. You might have
seen the medical school in Oliver Stone's recently released Comandante , the
unfortunate "documentary" with the nauseating camera-work and predictable,
shallow questions. Castro and Stone make a brief visit to the facility, but
all the film gives up is scenes of Fidel and the adoring crowd, and the
self-indulgent director of JFK quizzing Castro about the lone gunman theory.

But Cuba's international 'doctor diplomacy' deserves serious attention and
study. It offers a valuable example of an alternative form of humanitarian
intervention, and an example of the human benefits of alternative forms of
development. The U.S.-NATO military forays in the Balkans in the 1990s were
sold to the international community as humanitarian interventions. This
justification, nothing new in the history of empires, gained primacy in the
period between the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror.
But the humanitarian rationale remains important, particularly for
intervening in countries where allegations of Al-Qaeda links are just too
farfetched (i.e. even more farfetched than in Iraq), like in Haiti.

Even a cursory look at the humanitarian consequences of countless U.S. — and
often U.N., one should add — interventions, from the millions killed and the
children deformed by chemical warfare in Vietnam, to the ongoing, almost
unreported, civilian casualties of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan,
puts the lie to the myth of the benevolent Empire. But the North also makes
clear its disdain for the less powerful in less overt ways, through the
austerity measures dictated by the great, humane cause of debt repayment,
the grossly unfair terms of trade, and the steadily diminishing
contributions towards foreign aid programs. In fact, when Cuba announced its
medical cooperation with Haiti, it called, in vain, on the developed
countries to kick in funding for a comprehensive plan to reduce infant
mortality. It would require a complete rethinking of international relations
to even approach a truly humanitarian foreign policy. And even that is
somewhat utopian, given the realities of the developed capitalist countries'
competition for markets and resources.

The internationalism of the Cuban doctors — and, in fact, of teachers and
many other professionals and labourers on the island — can only be the
product of a society that has made efforts to produce a different, more
selfless type of human being. Che Guevara, the ubiquitous t-shirt icon, was
a leader of the Cuban Revolution and one of the most vocal advocates of the
necessity of transforming human beings as a prerequisite for building a
just, socialist society. Guevara warned of the disasters to be found along
the road of relying solely on bureaucratic mechanisms and material
incentives to increase productivity, and he advocated the promotion of
volunteer labour to develop consciousness and solidarity.

Indeed, blasphemous as it is in these reactionary times, the Cuban doctors
offer us a glimpse of the potential of socialism. Despite decades of
economic blockade, sabotage, terrorism, and development stifled by
often-bureaucratic methods and economic-political isolation, Cuba — and the
principled internationalism embodied by its volunteer doctors — deserves to
be included in the list of positive alternatives to a world ruled by greed
and military might.

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