Cuba proves size doesn't matter on the world aid front

[oblivious]

I first read this story in the South China Morning Post, but you have to pay to read it, so here is the same article in a blog:

Cuba proves size doesn't matter on the world aid front

More than two months after the earthquake that killed almost 6,000 people on Java, much of the world's international relief effort has wound down. An army of medics from countries including Italy, Japan, Poland and Pakistan have long returned home.

But among the ruins of 100,000 homes, a team of doctors from one small Caribbean country is labouring to support the estimated 650,000 people affected by the quake in May.

They are members of the Gantiwarno Cuban field hospital and they represent the human face of a vast commitment the tiny communist island has made to the humanitarian effort in the wake of many of the world's disasters.
http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/maxlaneintlasia/2006/08/a_report_on_recent_aid_to_indo.html#more
http://focus.scmp.com/focusnews/ZZZX9Q6XZQE.html

The BBC produced a shortened version of this column by the same author.

Cuba doctors popular in quake-stricken Java
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4792071.stm

The BBC left out the final four paragraphs of Fawthrop's article and I found that a bit interesting. Here's part of what they deleted:

But Cuba's motives for its vast aid team have been questioned.

...the US embassy in Pakistan reportedly pressured President Pervez Musharraf's government to decline humanitarian aid from Havana. According to official data from Islamabad, 73 per cent of all patients were treated by Cuban doctors in 44 places.

The Pakistan magazine Dawn reported that "in many cases Cuban medical teams have been monitored by dozens of intelligence operatives fearing they might incite a revolution". Similarly, the US government has been hostile to Cuban doctors helping out in East Timor and Indonesia.....

[Nutmegger]

1. Oh this is going to be good...

:popcorn:

Sick that even aid which is to help humankind is suppose to be "rejected" because it's from Cuba.

You'd think countries would put aside their differences and come together to help.

[TahitiNut]

5. Yep. The Horror! Humanitarian aid might cause revolution? The Horror!

At all costs, we must promulgate human suffering to ensure people are kept "happy."

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[Mika]

2. Cuba set up 44 emergency mobile surgical suites in Pakistan. The US did 1.

This was brought to light on a hotly contested Cuba thread several months ago.

Remember that Cuba offered to send its Henry Reeves Medical Brigade to New Orleans in those desperate days but BushCrimeInc didn't even respond to the offer. (BTW, the Henry Reeves Medical Brigade is named after an American doctor.)

http://www.cubainsideout.org/international/missions/henryreeves.shtml

[oblivious]

3. Yes that was one of the paragraphs cut from the BBC report.

The final paragraph:

Public health specialist Araceli Castro was in Cuba during Hurricane
Katrina. "Cuban doctors were ready to go to the US. It was admirable,"
the Harvard University academic and WHO adviser said. "But it was also
very funny that this tiny country was ready to send help to the
largest country in the world."

It's nice to see a country sending doctors and nurses around the world rather than soldiers. The fact that it is such a poor country makes it that much more impressive. It's despicable that the US encourages countries to reject this aid.

[1932]

4. The BBC is one of the most pro-neoliberal news services out there.

They're often as bad as the New York Times when it comes to keeping foreign markets open to western capitalism.