El Influyente diario antiguense Point Express difundió la denuncia realizada por la Embajada de Cuba en ese país contra la arbitraria y manipulada decisión del gobierno de Estados Unidos de señalar a Cuba como un país que no impide la trata de personas. A continuación articulo publicado por Point Express que incluye de forma integra la declaración elaborada por la Embajada de Cuba:
Cuban Ambassador debunks US claims on the issue of human trafficking
Cuba’s Ambassador to Antigua and Barbuda, Sergio Martinez, has debunked United States government’s claims that his country engages in human trafficking. The US government has been critical of the Cuban government’s health brigades that it sends, upon request, to countries needing to beef up their healthcare services. In a statement, the ambassador said the US is engaging in ‘lies and misinformation’ against Cuba to justify its many sanctions against the Caribbean country. Here is the full text of Ambassador Martinez’ statement:
Once again lies and cynicism
In recent days the United States Department published its so-called annual report on human trafficking. Once again, the United States Government arbitrarily and without any credible justification accuses Cuba of “not fully complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.”
With the publication of the aforementioned report, together with exercises such as the impure list of countries sponsoring terrorism, or the one referring to the issue of Human Rights, among many others, Washington takes the illegitimate right to judge sovereign countries that do not bend to its designs.
To justify this designation, the US Government uses contradictory and false arguments, with which it continues to distort and defame the humanistic and solidarity work of Cuban medical collaboration, that for decades, has saved thousands of lives in more than a hundred countries. Since the arrival of the Trump Administration and with its current successor at the White House, efforts and actions to try to affect Cuba’s medical cooperation agreements with third countries have intensified to levels never before seen. To do this, they use pressure and blackmail of all kinds against governments that sovereignly request Cuba’s support to improve and expand the public health programs of their respective countries; Washington finance and promote smear campaigns and shameful lies about the nature of our collaboration and the professionalism and prestige of Cuban health personnel; the constant harassment against our doctors, nurses and other professionals who provide their collaboration in third countries, so that they abandon their missions, is relentless. For the powerful northern empire, there is no limit, no matter how infamous and totally unethical the methods it uses to achieve its objective.
Cuba and its health professionals will never allow themselves to be pressured and intimidated by these actions of the US Government. We will never renounce our solidarity and humanist vocation. No one will be able to affect with campaigns and lies, the prestige and recognition acquired by Cuban health professionals. We will continue to lend our collaboration to those countries that need it, and especially, to our dear brothers in the Caribbean. Paraphrasing the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Commander Fidel Castro Cuba will always be able to send the doctors that are needed to the darkest corners of the world. Doctors and not bombs, doctors and not smart weapons, is what the world needs.
Sergio Martínez González Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba in Antigua and Barbuda