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Editor's Note: Jorge G. Castañeda is a CNN contributor. He was Secretary of Foreign Relations of Mexico. He is currently a professor at New York University and his most recent book is "America Through Foreign Eyes", published by Oxford University Press. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author.
(CNN Spanish) - The Mexican digital medium Animal Político resumed an interview published by the Diario de Cuba on June 8 with the Secretary of Health of the Government of the City of Mexico, Olivia López Arellano. There she explained the terms of the agreement between that instance and the Government of Cuba for the hiring of 585 doctors from the latter country.
Its mission would be to help combat the covid-19 pandemic in the Mexican capital, with a payment of US $ 6.2 million for an indefinite period (it can be assumed that per month) for as long as they were useful and necessary.
They are accommodated free of charge at the Hotel Benidorm, thanks to a series of donations from hoteliers in Mexico City. The official indicated that all the doctors were "volunteers" and that they were perfectly trained. Until today, she has not acceded to the request of Animal Político to allow an interview with the head of the island brigade.
Rains, it pours. Since April, informative notes have appeared in the Mexican media, and several comments in national and foreign media (including the author of this column, Andrés Oppenheimer, Octavio Gómez Dantés) offering similar versions on the same subject.
A first report published in the Reforma newspaper on May 8, reported that a contingent of Cuban doctors was housed at the Hotel Imperial and at the Fiesta Americana on Avenida Paseo de la Reforma. Of the 720 Cuban doctors, the majority would remain in the Valley of Mexico; some were dispatched to the states of Puebla and Chihuahua.
Also, on May 21, a news item appeared in the Diario de Xalapa about the arrival in Veracruz of a Mexican Air Force plane with 215 additional doctors (according to La Jornada, close to the Cuban regime, and other media, there were 108), which in principle they would settle in that state to attend to victims of the virus there.
The Cuban medical dispatch has a local and international record.
During the first decade of this century and as reported by several Mexican media and he told me himself, the then Governor of Coahuila Humberto Moreira invited a number of doctors on the island to perform cataract operations in mobile units, along with teachers and sports coaches.
Some years later, the Michoacán state government hired about 300 instructors for literacy purposes, according to a conversation held by the one who writes here with Governor Silvano Aureoles.
Fidel Castro's regime began sending doctors to other countries since 1963, when a small contingent was stationed in Algeria. Since then, tens of thousands of Cubans have traveled to numerous countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, especially Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Brazil.
The scheme, known for reporting and analysis in The Economist , Nexos, and the contract between the Government of Cuba and that of Algeria in recent times is more or less the same in each case.
The recipient government agrees with Havana on the number of doctors, their specialties and the period during which they will remain in that country. That government pays the Castro regime a sum of between $ 5,000 and $ 10,000 a month for each doctor. The island authorities, in turn, give a small part - between US $ 300 and US $ 600 - to each doctor, bagging the rest, except for an additional monthly payment that will be accrued when each doctor returns to Cuba.
Almost always, families remain in Cuba, and a “jurist” travels with the brigade as a political commissioner to watch over the doctors and prevent too much contact with the press, the non-patient population, colleagues, etc.
For all these reasons, the rapporteurs of the United Nations (UN) for contemporary forms of slavery and human trafficking, as well as Human Rights Watch and the governments that fired Cubans (Bolivia) or forced them to return ( Brazil) have asked the Government of Cuba for explanations. Furthermore, many observers believe that not only do doctors not receive fair remuneration, but they work in unacceptable conditions in a country of freedoms.
Havana and the host governments often reply that the doctors are "volunteers", that their sending abroad is an important source of foreign exchange and that they fulfill an irreplaceable function. And that, in addition, that money is used to support the internal public health system.
In Mexico, the debate is just beginning, since the report by Animal Político detonated it a few days ago. Several commentators have objected to the fact, criticizing the exorbitant price that Cuba charges, or have reported complaints from Mexican doctors about the conduct and competence of Cuban doctors.
Human Rights Watch director for the Americas, José Miguel Vivanco, asked on Twitter: “Will López Obrador know that Cuban doctors in Mexico do not have rights? Their passports are retained by the Cuban Embassy; their Cuban family cannot visit them; most of what they earn they receive in Cuba if they have good behavior, etc. ”
The fundamental question is whether it is a temporary episode, limited in its scope and the validity of the pandemic, or rather, as in other countries with Castro-friendly governments, this will become permanent, will expand in size and soon will acquire a political aspect.
The Government of Mexico, headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has not given a public response to this question. But he has privately assured other governments that the Cuban presence only corresponds to a temporary lack of Mexican doctors. Everyone can believe the version they prefer. Having followed, studied and lived the Cuban experience since the early 1970s, and knowing the great sympathy of López Obrador and his collaborators for Fidel Castro and his legacy, I am afraid that we are dealing with a subject that is anything but ephemeral. They are serious.
Medicine