Doctors, vaccines and Pancho Villa's pistol: the balance of López Obrador's visit to Cuba

Andrés Manuel López Obrador's visit to Cuba was loaded with symbolism.

The president of Mexico was decorated with the José Martí Order, the highest distinction granted by the island's authorities to a foreign personality, firmly condemned the embargo in the United States and rejected the exclusion of Cuba from the next Summit of the Americas, convened by Joe Biden next June in the city of Los Angeles.

But the icing on the whole staging of harmony between the two countries came with the delivery of Pancho Villa's pistol, one of the historical figures of the Mexican Revolution.

The gift from the Government of Miguel Díaz-Canel was announced by López Obrador during the morning press conference on Monday.

“It is a pistol that President Francisco I. Madero ordered to be delivered to Francisco Villa,” he explained before making a detailed review of the historical context of the episode.

López Obrador usually expresses a special admiration for Madero, president after the revolution, of whom he feels heir and successor.

“Madero and Villa disagreed but there were always signs of respect between the two leaders.

When Madero was murdered, he went to his grave to mourn his death because he was very fond of him, that's why that gun is a jewel that has to do with history," recalled López Obrador, who has already asked the National Museum of History and Anthropology a space for the piece.

The pistol of the revolutionary leader of Mexico, Francisco Villa. GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO

Beyond the symbolic, the meeting in Havana resulted in the signing of an agreement in the health sector, through which both countries expressed their willingness to strengthen cooperation to "promote the training of their human resources and stimulate research and assistance in different areas of health”.

The most immediate result of the agreement has been the hiring of more than 500 Cuban doctors and the purchase of vaccines against covid-19 developed by the island's laboratories.

López Obrador announced both decisions under the justification that in Mexico there is a lack of doctors in some specialties, especially in the poorest and most remote regions of the country.

“They are going to be working so that the development of health, medical care, medicines, analyzes or free clinical studies for those who do not have social security is fulfilled,” he said on Monday.

The Mexican president also announced that a cooperation agreement was signed for Mexican doctors to go to Cuba to train in some specialties.

“We are going to award scholarships for this purpose.

We are also going to acquire a vaccine that they are producing for very young children, which has given them very good results,” he added.

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel. POOL (REUTERS)

The hiring of Cuban doctors by the Morena government has a precedent.

In the summer of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, López Obrador announced a disbursement of six million dollars to bring 585 health professionals, which replaced the largest deployment of Cuban diplomacy in the midst of the pandemic.

The measure provoked the discontent of some twenty medical associations and colleges with around 60,000 members in Mexico, who demanded in a letter that the money be used to clean up the lags and job insecurity they face in the country's public health system.

On this occasion, the investment that Mexico has made for the contracting of new Cuban doctors is not known at the moment.

López Obrador has made a flag of his policy of active support for Havana against the United States.

Unlike other Mexican presidents -all of them have visited Cuba since 1959, but most have done so at the end of their mandate, in a protocol way-, López Obrador arrived halfway through the legislature and after having visited the United States three times, staging that wants to give the highest level to relations between the two countries in line with the tradition that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) maintained for decades, following the philosophy that "by defending Cuba, Mexico and its principles are also defended."

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