The exhibition we are launching today here in Brussels aims to highlight the titanic work that the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigades of Cuba has already accomplished in its 20 years of existence and activity.
We would like to extend our warm thanks to the Embassy of Cuba in Belgium, for our essential collaboration in preparing the exhibition. And of course Cuba, and the Henry Reeve Brigades, for the material they provided us with, and of course for the participation of Dr. Julio Guerra Izquierdo, whom we also thank for his presence.
It is true that the peoples of Europe have learnt about the Brigades in the difficult circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdowns, the collapse of public health systems, as a result of the ever-increasing commercialisation and privatisation of health in the capitalist EU, throughout the capitalist world. Today, we are again reminded that while thousands of victims were being mourned daily in the EU, a real massacre, the “international cooperation”, “solidarity”, “mutual aid” invoked by the EU turned out to be hollow declarations and an organised operation of deception. Member states competed against each other, tying up planes with medical equipment, closing borders and airspace. Vaccine development was ceded to the pharmaceutical giants with the EU pre-purchasing four times the number of vaccines from its own population and lavishly funding the pharmaceutical giants with people's money, delaying and restricting the need for immediate and timely vaccination of the people on the altar of fierce competition.
In the opposite direction, the example of Cuba has emerged and shone. A country under economic, commercial blockade for over 65 years by the USA and its allies. A blockade that creates important shortages of goods, services, medical equipment and medicines. Which, despite enormous difficulties, relying on its own resources, managed to develop its own effective vaccines, to vaccinate its population and to control the progression of the disease, and from the very first moment put its doctors and nurses at the disposal of the suffering peoples of the world without a second thought. Even in Europe, as with the Brigade missions in Italy, and elsewhere around the world, which were awarded prizes for their contribution.
In the 20 years since their foundation, the work of the Brigades is nothing but admirable. I will only briefly mention a few items that you will also see on the exhibition panels. The Brigades have been mobilised in over 45 countries around the world. Over 9000 Cuban health professionals have participated, providing health services to over 4 million people, saving over 89,000 lives. All this before the pandemic outbreak.
Their contribution to the fight against infectious diseases, such as Ebola in Africa, cholera in Haiti, without taking into account personal costs and risks, but also in helping in situations of natural disasters, such as the gigantic floods in Guatemala a few months after the Brigades were established in 2005, or in devastating earthquakes, such as in Pakistan in the same year, which had over 70,000 victims, is internationally recognised. For this contribution they were awarded by the WHO in 2017, and in 2020 by the Parliament of Honduras.
In the pandemic, within 5 months, the HRBrigades deployed in 38 countries and are still active in 29 today. Over 3700 health professionals, 60% of them women, treated over 350,000 people, saving over 9,000 lives.
In 2020, in honour of their contribution, solidarity movements with Cuba, associations, trade unions, mass organizations, conducted a global campaign to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Cuban doctors. A campaign supported by the European Parliamentary Group of the Communist Party of the Greece, and recommended that the request be adopted by the EP's Group for Friendship with Cuba, which it was. In 2021, over 100 organisations and 400,000 people signed the petition to give the Brigades the Peoples’ Peace Prize.
Dear friends,
For the right to health-care, as in all modern social rights, there are two paths. There is the path followed by the capitalist mode of production, with the results we have experienced and continue to experience. Consider that today, the EU is described by studies as a “medical desert” because of staff shortages, the deterioration of health services, the ever-increasing costs that are blocking the way for patients. And then there is the path followed by Cuba, which has as its basic principle that the defence of the human right to health-care is guaranteed, with universal free access, with universal health coverage for all, without discrimination.
There is no more striking example than the reason for the creation of the Brigades. The Henry Reeve Brigades were founded in September 2005 to assist the United States that had been hit by Hurricane Katrina, with over 1300 victims and over $75 billion in damages. In other words, to assist the country that is the main culprit for the great difficulties of the Cuban people, for the gigantic economic losses in the almost 65 years of the blockade. The USA, in defiance and disregard for the great needs of its people in terms of care in the face of the consequences of the deadly hurricane, did not accept the aid. Their governments, whether Democratic or Republican, and the exploitative system they administer, constantly condemn their own people to live without meaningful political protection as we see again today with the biblical disaster in California with the wildfires, turning the people of the US into a sacrificial lamb on the altar of capitalist profitability and cost-benefit policies.
After all, the Cuban health system, of which the Henry Reeve Brigades are a part, is a genuine child of the Cuban Revolution, a genuine child of Cuba's internationalist solidarity with all the peoples of the world. The solidarity that can unite people and nations in such a way that the raising of the standard of living of one determines the basis for the raising of the standard of living for all, which is the basis for mutual aid and cooperation between peoples.
For all these reasons, friends, the aim of today's event, the exhibition, is to make known this important aspect of Cuba's internationalist solidarity with the peoples of the world. In the new difficult circumstances imposed by the continuation of the criminal blockade that has caused consequences of over $1 trillion in current prices, the over 240 sanctions measures activated by the Trump administration and maintained by the Biden administration, the additional difficulties of the unacceptable inclusion of Cuba in the list of “countries that sponsor terrorism”.
Dear friends,
As you may realize, this exhibition was scheduled for months to take place inside the European Parliament, in its public exhibition halls. However, last week the EP decided not to authorise it to take place in its premises in Brussels.
In its decision, the EP provocatively claims that the content of the exhibition is “offensive, inflammatory, contrary to the values upon which the Union was founded or likely to give rise to disturbances”. Of course, this is a decision of expediency that is completely unjustified. After all, how can it be justified that an exhibition on international solidarity and mutual aid between peoples in the face of pandemic or natural disaster emergencies, to which Cuba and the International Medical Brigades have contributed for 20 years and have even been awarded for this by international organisations such as the WHO, is considered “offensive” or “inflammatory”?
The Delegation of the Communist Party of Greece in the EP condemns and publicly denounces this unacceptable decision. We invite you today to look at the panels on display and draw your own conclusions.
To those who have tried to prevent this exhibition from taking place, to those who are engineering the anti-Cuban resolutions of the EP, to those who are calling for new sanctions against Cuba and its people, for the blockade to be maintained, and for Cuba to remain on the unacceptable list of 'terrorist-sponsoring countries', we have only ten words to say: Cuba no está sola. Cuba vencerá. Abajo el bloqueo criminal.
Their machinations with your participation in today's exhibition have failed, they have received a resounding response. The exhibition organized by the CPG Delegation in the EP in cooperation with the Cuban Embassy in Belgium is taking place as scheduled, in this important Brussels exhibition hall W:Halll, from 13 to 16 January 2025.
We join our voices with the voices of the peoples of the world in defense of Cuba. For the immediate lifting of the blockade and sanctions, for the removal of Cuba from the shameful list, defending the right of the Cuban people to continue on the path opened by their Revolution without external interference and interventions.
(EmbaCuba Bélgica)