28320: Haiti Progres (News) This Week In Haiti 24:6 4/19/2006 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haïti Progrès <editor@haiti-progres.com>

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
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                         HAITI PROGRES
             "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                     * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                       April 19 - 25, 2006
                          Vol. 24, No. 6

ON PRÉVAL'S VISIT TO CUBA AND CUBAN-HAITIAN COOPERATION:
AN INTERVIEW WITH RADIO HAVANA'S ANNA KOVAC

Haiti's President-elect René Préval traveled to Cuba on April 12. The
visit, originally expected to be three days, lasted almost one week.

"Essentially I would say it was a trip of friendship and of making and
extending contacts," Préval said on his return to Haiti on April 18.
"There will be very concrete results."

On April 13, Préval met with Cuban president Fidel Castro at Havana's
Palace of the Revolution. Cuba's ministers of Public Health, of Basic
Industries, of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation, of Foreign
Affairs and of Agriculture were also present.

Préval said that Cuban doctors, of whom there are now some 500 in Haiti,
would soon be stationed in every Haitian county. Fifty-five Haitian
counties - called communes - presently don't have Cuban medical
personnel, Préval said. Since their deployment in Haiti in 1998, during
Préval's first administration, the Cuban doctors have made an estimated
8 million consultations and 100,000 operations.

Préval traveled to Cuba with about 60 young Haitians who will study in
Cuba to become doctors. Before flying to Havana, Préval stopped first in
Santiago de Cuba where he and the 60 new students were warmly greeted by
the 600 Haitian medical students already studying in Cuba. Last August,
128 Haitians graduated from the Cuban medical school, and 80 of them are
now practicing in Haiti.

Préval also was accompanied by 40 patients who stayed in Cuba to undergo
eye surgery under the joint Cuban-Venezuelan "Operation Miracle"
program, which provides free ophthamological treatment to low-income
people from Third World nations. The program has already treated 635
Haitian patients, Préval said.

Préval returned to Port-au-Prince with a delegation of Cuban electrical
engineers, who will study Haiti's feeble and black-out prone electrical
grid. A Cuban-Haitian commission will be formed at the end of June or
beginning of July to study and make proposals about the different areas
of cooperation, Préval said.

On April 15, the radio program "Haiti: The Struggle Continues," produced
by the Komite Chalo Jaklen and HaVti ProgrPs on WBAI 99.5 FM in New
York, interviewed Anna Kovac, Haiti Progres' correspondent in Cuba and
the head of Radio Havana Cuba's Creole language service. Ms. Kovac
conducted two interviews with René Préval during his visit to Cuba. Here
is some of what Kovac had to say. She spoke by telephone from Havana.



Kim Ives, Haiti Progres: Anna Kovac, can you tell us why René Préval is
visiting Cuba and with whom he is meeting?

Anna Kovac: He said why when he arrived in Santiago de Cuba with about
60 young Haitians who are starting their studies in medicine at the
Caribbean faculty in that city and around 40 Haitians with limited
economic means who are going to be operated on free of charge for
various eye problems like cataracts and glaucoma. Préval said that
during his first mandate, he launched cooperation relations with Cuba
and after he left the Presidency, these contacts diminished somewhat,
not completely, and he wants to reinforce them.

He has come to Cuba to speak to his friend Fidel, to ask for help and
cooperation to not only continue but to increase in health, education,
sports and lots of other areas too, like fishing and the sugar industry.

Préval's first big meeting was with the Cuban President Fidel Castro for
official consultations. We don't have a lot of details on what has come
out of these talks.... This morning [April 15], Préval visited the Cuban
province of Pinar del Rio in Cuba's far west. There he saw an experiment
in not only saving electricity but in assuring that everybody in that
province has electrical service. That province has been hit very badly
over the years - last year, especially, and the year before, and this
year it probably will be - by hurricanes. The national electric system
uses thermo-electric plants which are very old and very expensive to
use. They burn a lot of oil, which is now extremely costly. So Cuba has
set up small plants assuring electricity for hospitals, schools,
bakeries, food production plants, water pumps, and so on. Now when there
's a break-down in the national system, this province is not affected.
And the electricity costs much, much less than using these old
electrical plants. I don't know if Préval is going to get some ideas
from what is happening in Pina del Rio, but it is a very interesting
province. It is one of the poorest provinces in Cuba, but it is now
self-sustaining in electricity production.

Kim Ives: There are about 500 Cuban doctors in Haiti now. Préval said
during his visit to New York last month that Cuba and Haiti were looking
for a third country to help finance the mission of the 500 doctors in
Haiti. What discussions might there be about that?

Anna Kovac: Well, there are two things about the 500 doctors. It's not
financing the doctors. It's financing the doctors' medical supplies
which is necessary. The doctors are fine, but they need needles,
medicine, cotton and so forth to do their work, and the Cuban doctors
have been working really with very little supplies.

> From the very beginning, back in 1998, Cuba asked France, Canada and
lots of other countries to supply these much-needed medicines and
medical supplies. Countries like Japan gave something, but very token
donations...

Even with the doctors, you need medical supplies and equipment to
operate. Cuba is a poor country. What Cuba has is its people, who are
highly qualified and capable, but you can't operate if you don't have
the necessary surgical instruments. That's really what Cuba is looking
for.

Cuba in the United Nations has said this on many, many occasions. There
are thousands of Cuban doctors working in Africa too. But in Africa,
even more so, they need supplies. They need medicines. You can't have a
vaccination campaign if you don't have the wherewithal to do it with.
This is really what Cuba and Haiti are looking for. It's the rich
countries that have the money to do this, because the Cuban doctors are
working for free. The only thing they need is to eat and a place to
sleep...

The other thing is that last August, 128 young Haitians got their
diplomas as doctors and 80 of them have gone back to Haiti to work with
the Cuban medical brigade. Afterwards, they are going to come back to
Cuba to learn a specialty, that is to specialize in some branch of
medicine. Every year from now on, all the Haitian students who graduate
will go back to Haiti. Each young student has promised to go back to
help their community, to serve their community, when he or she returns
back home.

So the medical plan is pretty vast, but I think that it is well thought
out. Because Cubans aren't there forever. They have to be replaced by
Haitians.

Kim Ives: Anna, it is no secret that the U.S. government is seeking, as
it has sought for many years, to overthrow the Cuban government, and at
this point Haiti is militarily occupied by U.N. troops with U.S. troops
poised just across the border in Barahona, Dominican Republic. There are
said to be some 1000 U.S. troops, maybe many more, whom have been the
object of many demonstrations by Dominicans against their presence on
Dominican soil. What concerns might the Cubans raise with René Préval
about the continuing occupation of Haiti?

Anna Kovac: Well, I think that it's remarkable that the Cubans have
stayed in Haiti in spite of the February 29th coup, in spite of the fact
that first you had a U.S. occupation, followed by a U.N. occupation, in
spite of the fact that you had all these gangsters and ex-soldiers and
criminals who practically took over Haiti, in spite of all the waves of
kidnappings and so forth which were pretty terrible. The Cuban doctors
stayed. I think that, first of all, that is remarkable. That just shows
that Cuba is interested in helping the people. The Haitian people are
number one, and governments are number two...

I think that what's going to happen now is that there is going to be
another type of cooperation. Cuban cooperation is not like U.S.
cooperation or European cooperation. All the money that was supposedly
sent to Haiti - about $1.3 billion was promised and about half of that
has been sent to Haiti. Well, it went to Haiti, but then it turned
around and went back to where it came from. Eighty percent, Préval said,
of the $750 million in aid went back to the countries that had sent it
to Haiti. How did it go back? Well there were studies on studies, and
reviews of the cooperation. The whole plan was that you give 10 and you
take back 9, because, if it's French cooperation, you demand that
everyone who is employed is French, that you buy French equipment, and
use French services. So in fact, the money just turns around and goes
back to where it came from.

But Cuban cooperation is different. Cuban cooperation is not for Cuban
doctors to stay in Haiti, but to the contrary, to hold out until the
young Haitians who become doctors can go back home and take their place.

To be continued



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