WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday criticized Qatar and South Africa for accepting doctors from Cuba to battle the coronavirus, accusing the communist island of profiting from the pandemic.
Cuba’s globe-trotting doctors have long been a source of diplomatic soft power and pride for Havana, but Washington says the medical workers only benefit the government and has encouraged them to defect.
“We’ve noticed how the regime in Havana has taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to continue its exploitation of Cuban medical workers,” Pompeo told reporters.
“We applaud leaders in Brazil and in Ecuador and Bolivia and other countries which have refused to turn a blind eye to these abuses by the Cuban regime and ask all countries to do the same, including places like South Africa and Qatar,” he said.
“Governments accepting Cuban doctors must pay them directly. Otherwise, when they pay the regime, they are helping the Cuban government turn a profit on human trafficking.”
South Africa, which like Qatar has friendly relations with the United States, on Monday announced that 217 Cuban doctors had arrived in the country, which has the highest number of coronavirus infections in Africa.
Cuba has sent doctors to more than a dozen countries during the COVID-19 pandemic including hard-hit Italy. France has authorized Cuban teams to help in its overseas territories.
Cuba has made health care a societal pillar despite the poverty of the island, which has been subject to US sanctions for six decades.
Former president Barack Obama sought to reconcile with Cuba, calling the isolation policy a failure, and ended a program in which Washington encouraged Cuban doctors to defect and resettle in the United States — whose capitalist medical system offers exponentially higher incomes.
President Donald Trump’s administration has snapped back US pressure sharply and has imposed visa restrictions on Cuban officials involved in medical missions.
Cuba says it earned $6.3 billion from its medical dispatches in 2018 and used the proceeds to finance its own universal health care coverage.
One of the staunchest critics of the program is Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right ally of Trump, who kicked out 8,000 Cuban health workers as he took office.
Pompeo criticizes Qatar, S.Africa for taking Cuban doctors
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Pompeo criticizes Qatar, S.Africa for taking Cuban doctors
- Cuba’s globe-trotting doctors have long been a source of diplomatic soft power and pride for Havana
- US says medical workers only benefit the government and has encouraged them to defect
US says Mexican cartel drones breached Texas airspace
- Drone breach comes some five months into a US military campaign targeting alleged drug-smuggling boats
- US media also reported that the El Paso airspace closure may have been caused by the US military
HOUSTON: The Trump administration said Wednesday that Mexican cartel drones caused the temporary closure of a Texas airport, but some Democratic lawmakers pushed back, suggesting US military activity was responsible for the disruptive shutdown.
The report of the drone breach comes some five months into a US military campaign targeting alleged drug-smuggling boats, and could provide a pretext for President Donald Trump to follow through on his threats to expand the strikes to land.
Trump has specifically threatened to attack cartels inside Mexico, which said it had “no information” on drones at the border.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said late Tuesday the airspace over the Texas border city of El Paso would be shut to all aircraft for 10 days, citing unspecified national “security reasons,” only to lift the closure after less than 24 hours.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” adding: “The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”
A US administration official meanwhile said the breach was by “Mexican cartel drones,” and that US forces “took action to disable the drones,” without providing specifics.
But Democratic Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes El Paso, questioned the Trump administration’s explanation, saying it was “not what we in Congress have been told.”
“The information coming from the administration does not add up and it’s not the information that I was able to gather overnight and this morning,” Escobar told journalists.
And top Democratic lawmakers from the House Committee on Transportation suggested the Pentagon may have been responsible for the situation, saying defense policy legislation allows the US military to “act recklessly in the public airspace.”
The lawmakers called for a solution that ensures “the Department of Defense will not jeopardize safety and disrupt the freedom to travel.”
- War against ‘narco-terrorists’ -
US media also reported that the El Paso airspace closure may have been caused by the US military, with CNN saying the shutdown was the result of Pentagon plans to use a counter-drone laser without coordinating with the FAA.
The Pentagon referred questions on the closure to the FAA, which said when it announced the move that “no pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas” covered by the restrictions and warned of potentially “deadly force” if aircraft were deemed a threat.
It updated its guidance Wednesday morning, saying on X that the closure was lifted.
Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with “narco-terrorists,” carrying out strikes on alleged traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, while the US president has repeatedly said he plans to expand the strikes to land.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum opposes US military intervention in her country but has so far managed to negotiate a fine diplomatic line with Trump.
She has stepped up extradition of cartel leaders to the United States and reinforced border cooperation amid tariff threats from Trump, for whom curbing illegal migration from Mexico was a key election promise.
Sheinbaum told a news conference Wednesday that she had “no information on the use of drones at the border,” but that her government was investigating.
The United States began carrying out strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in September, a campaign that has killed at least 130 people and destroyed dozens of vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
US officials have not provided definitive evidence that the vessels are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations, which experts say amount to extrajudicial killings.
Trump also ordered a shocking special forces raid in Caracas at the beginning of January to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington accused of leading a drug cartel.
