Caribbean leaders this week rejected US accusations of Cuban labor exploitation after the United States announced it will restrict the visas of officials tied to a Cuban government program that sends medics abroad.
The US announced the measure late last month, arguing that the labor export programs run by Cuba’s government, which include many medics, “enrich the Cuban regime.” It further argued that those involved are complicit in the “exploitation and forced labor of Cuban workers.”
Cuba’s leaders, however, reject the US stance as Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “personal agenda... based on falsehoods” and said the measure could affect millions of health care beneficiaries.
Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants who fled the island to Florida, where President Donald Trump’s top diplomat would later win a Senate seat.
Since Cuba’s 1959 revolution, its medics have been dispatched to countries around the world, treating diseases that wreak havoc on poor countries, from cholera in Haiti to Ebola in West Africa. The program is also a key source of hard cash as the island nation endures its latest deep economic crisis.
Cuba says a decades-long US embargo, opposed by the vast majority of the United Nations, is the key driver of the crisis.
“Out of the blue now, we have been called human traffickers because we hire technical people who we pay top dollar,” said Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley at a hospital event.
Rowley added that he was prepared to lose his US visa.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves noted at least 60 people in the small island nation are on a Cuban-run haemodialysis program used to treat kidney failure.
“If the Cubans are not there, we may not be able to run the service,” he said, adding Cuban personnel are paid the same as locals. “I will prefer to lose my visa than to have 60 poor and working people die.”
Last week, Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith told reporters that her government views Cuban medics as important.
“Their presence here is of importance to our health care system,” she said, pointing to 400 doctors, nurses and medical technicians currently working in the country.
In a social media post, Bahamian Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell also vouched for the program, saying his government “follows all international best practices in the recruitment of labor.”
Defiant Caribbean leaders dismiss trafficking accusations as US targets Cuba’s doctor diplomacy
https://arab.news/g8sgc
Defiant Caribbean leaders dismiss trafficking accusations as US targets Cuba’s doctor diplomacy
- Trinidad and Tobago PM Keith Rowley: ‘Out of the blue now, we have been called human traffickers because we hire technical people who we pay top dollar’
- Jamaican FM Kamina Johnson Smith: ‘Their (Cuban medics) presence here is of importance to our health care system’
Palestine Action hunger strikers launch legal action against UK govt
- They accuse authorities of abandoning prison safety policies
- Several of the imprisoned activists have been hospitalized
LONDON: Hunger strikers from Palestine Action in the UK have launched legal action against the government, accusing it of abandoning the policy framework for prison safety, The Independent reported.
A pre-action letter was sent to Justice Secretary David Lammy by a legal firm representing the activists.
It came as several imprisoned members of the banned organization — including one who has refused food for 51 days — were hospitalized due to their deteriorating health while on hunger strike.
They say they have sent several letters to Lammy, who is also deputy prime minister, but have received no response.
He was urged in the latest letter to respond within 24 hours as the issue is a “matter of urgency.”
The letter added: “Our clients’ health continues to deteriorate, such that the risk of their dying increases every day.”
An “urgent meeting” is needed “with the proposed defendant to discuss the deterioration of our clients’ health and to discuss attempts to resolve the situation,” it said.
Seven of the Palestine Action prisoners have been admitted to hospital since the hunger strike was launched on Nov. 2, including 30-year-old Amu Gib and Kamran Ahmed, 28.
They are being held in prisons across the country. Two members of the group have been forced to end their hunger strike due to health conditions: Jon Cink, 25, ended on day 41, while 22-year-old Umer Khalid finished on day 13.
Gib, now on day 51, was hospitalized last week and reportedly needs a wheelchair due to health concerns.
Dr. James Smith, an emergency physician, warned journalists last Thursday that some of the imprisoned activists “are dying” and need specialized medical care.
In a letter signed by more than 800 doctors, Smith said the hunger strikers were at “very high risk of serious complications, including organ failure, irreversible neurological damage, cardiac arrhythmias and death.”
The strikers are demanding that Palestine Action, which is classified as a terrorist organization, be de-proscribed.
They are also urging the government to shut down defense companies with ties to Israel, among other demands.
In response to the latest letter, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We strongly refute these claims. We want these prisoners to accept support and get better, and we will not create perverse incentives that would encourage more people to put themselves at risk through hunger strikes.”
