Cuba shows the way of solidarity and cooperation
The pandemic that has hit the entire planet has set enormous challenges and dilemmas before the international community - organizations, states, governments and peoples. At a time when national entrenchment, the lack of solidarity in the EU and even between states within the US, the depreciation of health systems, the lack of care for the weak is predominant, Cuba is responding with greater solidarity, volunteerism and international cooperation.
The Cyprus-Cuba Friendship Association salutes Cuba's emotive stance in the fight against the pandemic.
Today, the whole world is following Cuba today - which for years has been facing the devastating war waged against it by the West - sending doctors and nurses to Latin America and Africa, but also to countries in Europe, such as Italy, while other countries have already addressed an appeal for Cuban support. To assist in repatriation, but also to care for passengers of a British cruise ship, whose mooring was denied by the United States and other countries. To contribute to medical research on confronting the coronavirus by providing Interferon Alfa-2b, a product of the Cuban biopharmaceutical system, which is already being used in the People’s Republic of China to treat the symptoms of the virus.
A large section of the world's public opinion may be learning about the missions of Cuban volunteer doctors today, but Cuba's humanitarian internationalism is nothing new. It is estimated that in the six decades of the Revolution, hundreds of thousands of Cuban doctors and nurses have fulfilled missions in 160 countries around the world to offer voluntary assistance in combating natural disasters and epidemics. Cuban doctors have performed millions of surgeries, vaccinations and births in Latin America, Africa, Asia and other parts of the world. The most recent examples were the Cuban missions in Haiti after the deadly earthquake, in West Africa when the deadly Ebola virus broke out, with Cuba sending the biggest mission of doctors and humanitarian aid from all over the world, receiving the congratulations of the World Health Organisation itself, but also two years ago, when the United States, Britain and France launched an air strike on Syria, Cuba "responded" by sending cargoes of vaccines and medicines to the Syrian people. Together with its medical missions, Cuba is developing a similar activity in the field of education and the fight against illiteracy in Latin America, while thousands of young people from developing countries are studying on a scholarship in Cuban medical schools.
Nevertheless, at a time when the Island of the Revolution is demonstrating in practice to the whole world the essence of the Revolution, namely socialism and solidarity, the United States is intensifying its slanderous propaganda against Cuba and hardening its inhumane blockade of Cuba, despite the fact that the US has been repeatedly condemned in the Resolutions approved by the UN General Assembly. The Trump administration has proceeded to a more suffocating implementation of the notorious Helms-Burton Act - which constitutes a violation of international law - by imposing sanctions not only on Cuba, but on foreign companies too, also including EU member states dealing with Cuba. This is precisely the reason why Cuba itself, selflessly helping dozens of other countries around the world, in these difficult times does not have access to additional protective equipment, diagnostic tests and respirators, given that companies avoid transporting them.
The Cyprus-Cuba Friendship Association's position is that today the demand for terminating the US economic, trade and financial blockade against Cuba has never been more timely and imperative, which has been going on for decades with incalculable damage caused to the Cuban economy, including the health sector. The practical recognition of Cuba's selfless solidarity in tackling the pandemic means the demand around the world for the termination of the illegal US blockade against Cuba should be strengthened.
6th April 2020