Cuba - Key to Continent’s Aids Pandemic

(The Herald)—The bravery and fervour Cuban revolutionaries have displayed since time immemorial, from Jose Marti (whom Fidel Castro affectionately refers to as the Apostle of the Revolution) and General Antonio Maceo to Che Guevara and Vilma Espin, have always been an inspiration to those that truly love freedom and justice.

This passion for world peace stems from the revolutionary values which are at the core of Cuban society. Often times, the world has seen how willing Cubans are to give their lives and resources in the pursuit of freedom and justice - such as they did at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. It is quite interesting that despite this rich history of sacrifice, Commandante Fidel Castro has humbly indicated on numerous occasions that the greatest army ever assembled in Cuba, is that of the medical brigades. These professional and well-trained brigades have many times represented their country patriotically not only at home but throughout the world.

Whether speaking in our indigenous or colonial languages, no one can ever find the right words with which to express our gratitude for the countless lives Cuban medical personnel have saved across the Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. The commitment that the Cuban medical brigades have demonstrated is truly inspiring whether or not one supports Cuba’s political and social ideology. The poorest people in the world have benefited from free treatment that has been extended by the government of the largest island in the Caribbean. This level of commitment and exemplary service has put Cuba at the forefront of intervention in containing the spread and impact of HIV and Aids on both the African continent and in the diaspora.

While medical advocacy groups when revealing tragic statistics in relation to this deadly disease might have created a climate of panic that many of those with HIV or Aids never psychologically overcome, several top medical experts estimate there will be 18 million Aids orphans on the African continent by 2010. Already close to a decade into the second millennium, it is time for Africa to fully appreciate a standing offer that Cuba has made to the continent to assist in dealing with the pandemic.

While the United Nations and various organisations such as the Global Fund were still busy setting up the Millennium Fund, Commandate Castro communicated to the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Cuba would like to lend its assistance to the cause. He told Annan that because Cuba was under a decades-old blockade, the country could not give monetary aid but there was still a way in which he could give help. Commandate Castro said Cuba was willing to send 4 000 - that’s right, 4 000, of Cuba’s best HIV and Aids doctors and specialists directly to Africa and that they would remain on the continent until the pandemic was defeated.

That offer, unfortunately was not taken up because the UN apparently feared the reaction from the United States - Cuba’s age old enemy - if it emerged that the Communist country was doing far more than anyone else in combating HIV and Aids. So, sadly, nothing came out of the most generous offer. It is fortunate that the region on the continent worst affected by HIV and Aids is also the same region that has the closest ties with Cuba on the continent: Southern Africa.

There are numerous Cuba Friendship Associations across the Sadc region and it is time these bodies jointly approached the African Union and made it clear that the continent should accept Cuba’s offer. People are always saying that Africa should be left to come up with solutions to its own problems and in Cuba’s magnanimous offer, the continent has an opportunity to cast aside the conditional aid that comes from the West and effectively do something about HIV and Aids.

The time is more than ripe to submit a joint proposal to the AU, through the proper channels and established protocol, using the various Cuba Friendship Associations and through the offices of Sadc health ministers. The proposal should call for the AU to create a joint fund from each member of the continent body to finance the 4 000-strong brigade that Cuba would like to send.

This money would be used for their upkeep.

The AU should agree to let Cuba develop a training programme that helps African countries deal with droughts, floods and other natural calamities and disasters as these have a huge impact on HIV and Aids. We know that the immediate reaction from some in Africa will be that making such a decision will place the continent on a collision course with the United States, which does not want the rest of the world to develop strong ties with Cuba.

The case of Zimbabwe and its courageous leader President Mugabe has shown the world exactly the kind of onslaught that the US can unleash when a Third World country resists big power hegemony and makes decisions that empower its own peoples. But can the US really afford to antagonise the whole of Africa? Can it try and do to the entire continent what it has been doing to Zimbabwe?

After all, the US needs Africa’s resources and so there should not be any fear of the American reaction to accepting Cuba’s generous offer. What will make this statement even more powerful is if Africans in the diaspora do something equally as bold and visionary. The African community inside America’s borders are only three years removed from Hurricane Katrina—one of the most devastating disasters in US history. In the midst of all the political grandstanding that characterised the Bush administration’s response to the catastrophe, the most significant and genuine offer of help was almost totally ignored.

Twenty-four hours after the hurricane struck, Commandate Castro contacted the US State Department in Washington and offered to send 500 environmental disaster specialists to the Gulf region within the next day.
That was not all. A further 1 500 would be dispatched over the next 48 hours. The personnel would remain in place, assisting victims of the disaster until health infrastructure was resurrected and the people were adequately catered for. In the next 48 hours, the US Health and Human Services Department declared a public health emergency in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The emergency was then extended to nine other states where survivors were evacuated to but still the US would not accept Commandate Castro’s offer. Later on, it is estimated that apart from innumerable deaths and damage to property, over 500 000 people were said to have needed psychological counselling following the disaster and the government’s inadequate response to it. An interesting point to note: Louisiana supplies 30 percent of the oil and gas produced in the US but has a poverty rate of 23 percent. The poverty rates in Mississippi and Alabama are 23 and 20 percent respectively and these are the worst three states in the entire country. For some reason, the non-white community, who were the worst affected by Hurricane Katrina, failed to unite to confront the Bush administration for their poor response to the tragedy and for refusing to take up Cde Castro’s offer. The US Department of Health was well aware of what Cuba did during the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 in Russia where they offered similar assistance.

A similar offer was made after the September 11 attacks.

Despite this sterling humanitarian record, the US still lists Cuba as a terrorist country and little girls like Condoleezza Rice have the temerity to paint the country as an outpost of tyranny. While conventional wisdom says the reaction of US imperialism to these offers was predictable and it would be idealistic to expect otherwise, the former Ambassador to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, Dagoberto Rodriguez, said the offer was not just rejected, but was simply ignored. But at the same time, the response of the 40 million Africans living inside US borders was at best mediocre. We chose to waste time on television panels discussing the sound byte of hip-hop star Kanye West when he said, "George Bush doesn’t like black people," rather than to tackle the real issues affecting us. Spike Lee’s film, When the Levees Broke, dramatised the disaster that had struck but few people took the opportunity to use this documentary to pressure the administration into accepting the offers that had come from not only Cuba, but now Venezuela as well. While the cultural workers failed to shed light on Cuba’s offer the medical and political sectors of our community fared no better.

Neither the National Medical Association nor Black Nurses Association - our two largest medical advocacy groups - promoted this offer. Civil rights organisations like the NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women, the National Urban League, the Children’s Defence Fund and the Congressional Black Caucus took advantage of the platform to fight to have the Cubans come and help us in the Gulf. The churches - many of which are connected to the Martin Luther King Centre in Cuba - also did very little to pressure the administration over its insensitivity. While they were efforts to raise the issue, such as those by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, these were far and between. And now, three years later while Africa should be pushing for the Cuban medical brigade to be deployed forthwith, we Africans in America should realise we lost a similar opportunity and should be campaigning at home so that the US government does not block this offer. We should demand that Bush not interfere should the brigade be deployed, demand presidential hopeful Barack Hussein Obama raise this issue on every campaign stop he has from here until November and that fellow aspirant John McCain not sabotage this in traditional US military fashion.

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