Cuba’s extraordinary global medical record shames the US blockade

[Judi Lynn]

Cuba’s extraordinary global medical record shames the US blockade

Seumas Milne

Wednesday 3 December 2014 15.07 EST

Four months into the internationally declared Ebola emergency that has devastated west Africa, Cuba leads the world in direct medical support to fight the epidemic. The US and Britain have sent thousands of troops and, along with other countries, promised aid – most of which has yet to materialise. But, as the World Health Organisation has insisted, what’s most urgently needed are health workers. The Caribbean island, with a population of just 11m and official per capita income of $6,000 (£3,824), answered that call before it was made. It was first on the Ebola frontline and has sent the largest contingent of doctors and nurses – 256 are already in the field, with another 200 volunteers on their way.

While western media interest has faded with the receding threat of global infection, hundreds of British health service workers have volunteered to join them. The first 30 arrived in Sierra Leone last week, while troops have been building clinics. But the Cuban doctors have been on the ground in force since October and are there for the long haul.

The need could not be greater. More than 6,000 people have already died. So shaming has the Cuban operation been that British and US politicians have felt obliged to offer congratulations. John Kerry described the contribution of the state the US has been trying to overthrow for half a century “impressive”. The first Cuban doctor to contract Ebola has been treated by British medics, and US officials promised they would “collaborate” with Cuba to fight Ebola.

But it’s not the first time that Cuba has provided the lion’s share of medical relief following a humanitarian disaster. Four years ago, after the devastating earthquake in impoverished Haiti, Cuba sent the largest medical contingent and cared for 40% of the victims. In the aftermath of the Kashmir earthquake of 2005, Cuba sent 2,400 medical workers to Pakistan and treated more than 70% of those affected; they also left behind 32 field hospitals and donated a thousand medical scholarships.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/03/cuba-global-medical-record-shames-us-blockade-ebola

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1. not a blockade... 190 countries trade with Cuba...

only one does not.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Nope, you're well short of the truth on this. The US embargo, called "el bloqueo" in Spanish,

has extraterritorial which interferes with trade with Cuba and MANY countries which would otherwise have started doing business with Cuba long ago.

You should take some time out to do your research on this subject, and while you're at it, get informed on the wide-reaching effects of the Helms-Burton Act, which was specifically created to make the embargo even more severe.

From an earlier thread posted this year here, post #33
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110833140#post33:

~snip~

...... Real damage to the country, to its citizens has been done under the effects of the U.S. embargo, called "bloqueo" in Cuba, and over the years, additional anti-Cuban legislation has been added, the last by the towering, fetid, grotesque racist of the U.S. Senate, Jesse Helms in his Helms-Burton Act, which added additional extraterritorial power to the embargo, even as European countries, and Canada, etc. all immediately reacted in describing it as being illegal in international law. Something to be proud of, isn't it?

A couple of examples must be repeated for this thread, even as they have been discussed over and over again by legitimate DU members for years:

Cuba, Mexico upset by US move to halt energy meeting
Mon Feb 6, 2006 2:31 PM ET
By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba and Mexico on Monday condemned the U.S.-ordered eviction of 16 Cuban officials from an American-owned hotel in Mexico City during a conference with U.S. energy companies.

The Cuban officials, including a vice minister, were told to leave the Sheraton hotel on Friday during a conference organized by the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association, which opposes the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

The Cuban government said the action showed that the 45-year-old embargo was an international blockade that infringed the rights of third countries, contrary to the U.S. position, which says the embargo is a bilateral affair.

"The tentacles of the U.S. government's blockade and criminal economic war against Cuba reach any corner of the planet, including to the detriment of other nation's sovereignty and laws," the official Cuban daily Granma said.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2089709

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Mexico to Probe Hotel That Expelled Cubans
By LISA J. ADAMS
Associated Press Writer
February 6, 2006, 11:16 PM EST

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico launched an investigation Monday into whether the U.S. government pressured an American-owned hotel into expelling Cuban guests or whether the guests were asked to leave because of their nationality.

The meeting between Cuban officials and U.S. energy executives was moved to another hotel Saturday after the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton asked the Cubans to leave.
Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said Monday if the Sheraton had violated Mexican trade and investment protection laws, it would "apply the fines provided for under the law."

Cuba criticized the expulsion, with the Communist Party daily Granma saying in an editorial that "the tentacles of the blockade and the U.S. government's criminal economic war against Cuba are willing to reach beyond any boundary on the planet, even to the detriment of the laws of other nations."

Kirby Jones, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association, said the U.S. government pressured the hotel's owner, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., arguing that the U.S. company was violating a law that strengthened U.S. trade sanctions first imposed against Cuba in 1961.

The 1996 Helms-Burton law "does not exist, and should not be applied, in our nation," Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez told a Mexico City radio station in an interview.

More:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-mexico-us-cuba,0,5438838.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

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Canadian Guilty on 21 Counts in Cuba Trade Case
by Steve Eckardt
3 April 2002

PHILADELPHIA - Canadian citizen James Sabzali was found guilty here today on 20 counts of violating the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act and a single count of conspiracy in connection with sales of water purification supplies to Cuba. He now faces up to life in prison and over US$5 million in fines.

Prosecutors previously declared their intention to seek a dozen years' sentence, according to Sabzali.

The 43-year-old salesman is the first Canadian to be criminally convicted for violating the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Seven of the charges against him are for actions taken on Canadian soil.

Canadian law makes it illegal to comply with the U.S. embargo.

"I'm shocked," declared Sabzali, who had fully cooperated with the five-year investigation, "it doesn't make any sense."

"It's unbelievable," said Sharon Moss, Sabazli's Canadian-born wife, clearly shaken by the verdict.

While the jury convicted Sabzali for sales made from Canada to Cuba , it found him not guilty on all charges up to March 1995, during his employment by Purolite International, a Canadian company.

Sabazli's April 1995 appointment as North American director of marketing for the U.S. corporation Bro-Tech, itself in the dock along with two of its executives, apparently triggered guilty findings on seven subsequent violations of the Trading with the Enemy Act, despite the sales being conducted from Canada. Failing to commit these violations would have subjected Sabzali to Canadian criminal penalties for complying with the U.S. embargo.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.canadiannetworkoncuba.ca/Documents/Sabzali-Eckardt.shtml

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Thursday, 4 April, 2002, 09:45 GMT 10:45 UK
Canadian convicted of trading with Cuba

By the BBC's Mike Fox in Montreal

A US court has convicted a Canadian national of breaking the 40-year old American trade embargo against Cuba, in one of the first cases of its kind.

The man, James Sabzali, and two American company executives were found guilty of trading with an enemy of the United States by selling water purification chemicals to Cuba.

Prosecutors said the three men conspired to use foreign subsidiaries to channel American products to Cuba.

Mr Sabzali faces a maximum sentence of more than 200 years in jail although prosecutors have recommended less than five. He is to be sentenced on 28 June.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1910284.stm

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If the blockade has such minimal effect on Cuba, as you appear to believe, why is it that every year there is a massive opposition vote in the U.N. as the countries vote to CONDEMN THE U.S. EMBARGO ON CUBA? Why bother, why go to all the trouble, why take this vote annually in the U.N. General Assembly if great harm has not been done?

In fact, if it's such a no big deal, why not rescind it, after all? Why not let the Cuban people get on with their lives?

This vote has been going on for years, and years, and it will NOT be dropped until this embargo, known as "El Bloqueo" is removed.

The purpose is now and always has been, to make life so difficult for the people of Cuba they will have a reverse revolution, and overthrow their own revolution, and allow the racist monsters who triggered the revolution with their human rights abuses, their racism, their violence, their oppression climb right back into the driver's seat.

The purpose is to make their lives so painful they will overthrow their own government and let the US-supported goons, clowns, dictators, death squads run their country again.

[quadrature]

3. a secondary boycott does not turn an embargo ...

into a blockade.

for the sake of completeness,
I should add that it is possible
that a handful of countries,
such as Palua and Taiwan,
might be joining the US
in the embargo.

[Judi Lynn]

4. On Cuba Embargo, It’s the U.S. and Israel Against the World — Again

On Cuba Embargo, It’s the U.S. and Israel Against the World — Again
By Ernesto Londoño
October 28, 2014 3:03 pm

A little-known former American ambassador on Tuesday addressed the General Assembly to perform a dreaded task: defending the issue that has isolated the United States diplomatically like no other, the Cuban embargo.

“This resolution only serves to distract from the real problems facing the Cuban people,” Ronald D. Godard admonished, before the United States voted against a non-binding resolution submitted yearly by Havana calling for a repeal of the sanctions Washington has imposed on the island for more than five decades.

Only Israel sided with the United States, although the Israelis were happy to forgo a turn at the podium to defend their position. Of the 193 members of the United Nations, 188 backed Cuba. The three abstentions — Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau — are not widely regarded as diplomatic heavyweights.

The yearly vote, which usually goes largely unnoticed in the United States, is worth paying close attention to this year. Under growing pressure from neighboring countries to normalize relations with Cuba, the White House is considering what steps it might be able to take in that direction during President Obama’s remaining time in office.

Cuba has been sending increasingly clear signals that it wants a rapprochement. In his speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla called for a new era in bilateral relations.
“We invite the government of the United States to establish a mutually respectful relation, based on reciprocity,” he said. “We can live and deal with each other in a civilized way, despite our differences.”

Diplomats from Zambia, Belarus and Tanzania were among those who chose to take to the podium to condemn the embargo. But the interventions by envoys from Colombia and Brazil were particularly significant. Colombia, perhaps Washington’s staunchest ally in the region, has become increasingly vocal in challenging the United States on its Cuba policy. The Brazilian representative warned that, henceforth, no regional summit could exclude Cuba.

More:
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/on-cuba-embargo-its-the-u-s-and-israel-against-the-world-again/?_r=0

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As most people realize, these 3 abstentions are very small nations, wholly dependent upon whatever alms the beneficent beings in the US State Department decide to give them from the tax dollars of hard-working U.S. citizens.

Not exactly whole-hearted, earnest, unsolicited support.