The Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Che Guevara, overthrew on January 1st, 1959, the cruel and despotic regime of Fulgencio Batista, a neo-colonial dictatorial regime backed by the U.S. government. The Cuban Revolution put an end to centuries of economic, military and political oppression.
Prior to 1959, half of the Cuban population was illiterate or semiliterate and the infant mortality rate was over 40 per 1,000 new-born. Now, thanks to universal and free education and health care, Cuba has reached almost 100% literacy and the infant mortality rate has dropped to 5.0 per 1,000 new-born in 2019. Life expectancy has risen from 58 years in 1959 to 78.45 years for men and 80.45 years for women today. In 2020, 52% of the State budget in Cuba is dedicated to education, social assistance and health-care services. Cuba has some of the world’s best medical schools, which are recognized by the United Nations (UN).
Gender inequality was eradicated by the Cuban Revolution. Women’s rights are flourishing in Cuba. In Cuba’s National Assembly, 53% of MPs are women – the second highest number in the world. 48.4% of members of State Council are women. Women represent 60.5% of all Higher-education graduates in Cuba.
Solidarity and Internationalism are two key principles of the Cuban Revolution.
In 57 years more than 400,000 Cuban health workers have completed medical cooperation missions in 164 nations.
They have made outstanding contributions in the fight against Ebola in Africa, against blindness in Latin America and the Caribbean, and cholera in Haiti; in 26 brigades from the Henry Reeve International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disasters and Major Epidemics, in Pakistan, Indonesia, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Venezuela, among others.
Currently 29,000 Cuban health care professionals provide services to 65 nations worldwide.
A total of 35 613 health professionals from 138 countries have been trained free-of-charge in Cuba.
In the midst of the current Covid-19 health-care global crisis, 19 experienced Cuban medical brigades are assisting coronavirus-hit nations in different continents: Venezuela, Nicaragua, Suriname, Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, Italy, Haiti, Angola, Togo, St. Thomas and Prince, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, San Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Principality of Andorra and Qatar. Over 75 countries are also asking Cuba for Interferon Alpha B2, an effective biopharmaceutical to Treat Covid-19, which is produced in Cuba and at a joint Sino-Cuba venture in China. It has been in use in China since the beginning of the outbreak there.
The Cuban Revolution was a historic milestone not only in the political and economic fields but also in the scientific and innovation fields. Cuba has been able to develop biotechnology at the level of developed countries. In 2015, Cuba became the first country in the World, followed by Thailand in 2016, to be validated by the World Health Organization (WHO) for having eliminated the transmission of acquired immunodeficiency virus (HIV-AIDS) and syphilis from mother to child.
The economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States began February 7, 1962, has recently reached increasingly extreme dimensions. At current prices, the accumulated damages over almost six decades of this policy, through March of 2019, reached the figure of 138,842,400,000 U.S. dollars. Taking into account the depreciation of the dollar as compared to the price of gold on the international market, the blockade has caused quantifiable damages of more than 922,630,000,000 U.S. dollars.
58 years after its imposition, the U.S. blockade against Cuba constitutes the most unjust, severe and prolonged system of unilateral coercive illegal measures ever applied against any country. It is genocidal in its nature and objectives, violates the human rights of an entire Nation, and must end. Since 1992, twenty-eight UN Resolutions adopted by the international community at the General Assembly have categorically rejected and demanded the unconditional lifting of the blockade imposed by the U.S. government against Cuba for almost 6 decades.
Source: EmbaCuba Thailand