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Editor's Note: Jorge Gómez Barata is a columnist, journalist and former official of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and former vice president of the news agency Prensa Latina. The opinions expressed in this column are exclusive to the author.
(CNN Spanish) - The capacity of ideological centers to manipulate public opinion, form opinion matrices and forge stereotypes is anthological.
On April 20, 2009, the Folha newspaper in Sao Paulo, Brazil, gave an account of the praise that - in Port of Spain - the then president of the United States, Barack Obama, lavished on the work of Cuban doctors.
On October 19, 2014, The New York Times editorialized about the “impressive contribution of the doctors of the Island in the fight against Ebola in Africa…”
According to a cable from Reuters on October 22, 2014, US Secretary of State John Kerry praised Cuba for sending doctors to Africa.
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On March 22, 2016 in Havana, Obama said:
“… No one should deny the service that thousands of Cuban doctors have provided to the poor and those who suffer. Last year, American health workers - and US military - worked side by side with the Cubans to save lives and end Ebola in West Africa ... ”
After some time, those same professionals have been qualified by American leaders as slaves of the Cuban government. There is no right to so much inconsistency.
The "More Doctors" program does not allow health professionals to receive all of their salaries, because a part is invested to, in the words of the Cuban government, "strengthen the Cuban health system", and they are discounted housing and food, so they only have a small percentage left for personal expenses. Additionally, they are separated from their families for long periods.
Although the Cuban government could improve the design of its technical services export management, including the proportion of the salary received by doctors and other professionals working abroad, calling them "slaves" seems to me to be an infamy created for political purposes. In 55 years of that practice, such an exaggeration had never been heard.
I do not argue that Cuban professionals (doctors, teachers and professors, engineers, builders, agronomists, veterinarians, economists, sports trainers, art instructors), who provide or have provided services abroad, are underpaid.
Underpaid are also many of those who will read this note, and hundreds of millions that, throughout the world, as employees, wage their livelihoods and that of their families.
Modern slavery is usually linked to ignorance, poverty and helplessness. Strictly speaking, this condition implies a level of compulsion and submission that can hardly be found among high-level professionals, such as the Cuban medical community.
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The idea that Cuban professionals who work abroad do so for philanthropic reasons is an excessively skewed view.
Although done with love and consecration, it is a job that by the standards of the country, is more than acceptably paid.
Of the more than 400,000 Cuban doctors and health workers who have traveled to more than 164 countries, about half have completed missions more than once, and many have done so up to four times. Some, together with all periods, accumulate up to a decade of services abroad.
Why do doctors with enough lights, even renowned scientists, want to be enslaved several times?
Obviously, none of the promoters of these campaigns feel any compassion for Cuban doctors, nor can they be considered leaders in the fight against modern slavery. If so, they would have a lot to deal with in their countries and outside of them. Underpaid people are everywhere.
The doubt could be settled by the World Health Organization which, in coordination with the Cuban authorities and assisted by faultless professionals, managed to convene an independent panel and oblivious to any political manipulation to apply a survey to no less than 25,000 health workers Cubans about whether they consider themselves slaves to their government.
The government's relations with the people, the intelligentsia, the professionals in all the branches, the youth and the working class are different from those usually observed in the rest of the Latin American countries, and in no way are there any tension, tension or resentments, but excellent communication.
The Cuban doctors, who were virtually expelled from Brazil, Ecuador, and Bolivia, were not released but deprived of excellent work and many lamented the outcome. The vast majority returned and were received with affections and honors, which they returned. It has never been seen that slaves applaud and embrace slavers. See you there.
Cuban doctors