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The United States has announced that it revoked the visas of Brazilian, African and Caribbean officials about its links with the Cuba program which sends doctors abroad, which Washington described as “forced work”.
The United States has appointed two Brazilian officials from the Ministry of Health, Mozart Julio Tabosa Sales and Alberto Kleiman, who revoked their visas for working on the Brazilian program, or “more doctors”, which was created in 2013.
In a statement on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said sanctions had been imposed on officials “involved in obtaining the Cuban coercive export program, which he said” enriched the corrupt Cuban diet and deprives the Cuban essential medical care people “.
“The Ministry of State has taken measures to revoke the visas and impose restrictions on visas on several officials from the Brazilian government, former officials of the Pan -American Health Organization (PAHO) and family members for their complicity with the work export program of the Cuban regime in the program but Medicos,” said Rubio.
In a previous statement, Rubio also announced restrictions on visas for African officials, without specifying the countries involved, as well as the Payïbes de la Grenada, for the same reasons.
The Cuban government has called Washington’s efforts to prevent its medical missions a cynical excuse to continue its currency earnings.
Deputy Deputy Director of American Affairs of Cuba, Johana Tablada, said that “his medical cooperation will continue”.
“The priorities (of Rubio) speaks volumes: to finance the genocide of Israel in Palestine, torture Cuba, to continue the health care services for those who need it most,” wrote Tablada on X.
The international missions of Cuba are sold to third countries and serve as the main source of foreign currency for the economically isolated nation, which has been the subject of paralyzing sanctions for several decades by the United States.
Havana international medical awareness dates back to the years that followed the 1959 Cuban revolution, while the Communist government of Fidel Castro provided a Free or low cost medical program to developing countries as an act of international solidarity.
It is estimated that Havana has sent between 135,000 and 400,000 Cuban doctors abroad over the past five decades.
Brazilian Minister of Health, Alexandre Padilha, said that his government would not bow to what he called “unreasonable attacks” against the medical.
The Cuba contract in the program was terminated in 2018 after Jair Bolsonaro, elected president of the time, questioned the terms of the agreement and qualifications of Cuban doctors.
Washington is already engaged in a stormy diplomatic row with the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after having imposed sanctions on the Brazilian officials involved in Bolsonaro’s current trial on his alleged couplios plot in 2022.
Cuba’s health system is public and intended to be universally accessible. But decades of sanctions and a slowdown in tourism due to Trump’s travel ban means that the single condition is no longer medically self -sufficient.
Since his return to the White House, the Trump administration has resumed its campaign of “maximum pressure” against Cuba which characterized its first mandate.
Last year, the island nation of 9.7 million people could not afford the 300 million dollars necessary to import raw materials to produce hundreds of critical drugs.
In July, Trump imposed sanctions Against Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Alvaro Lopez Miera, and the Minister of the Interior Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas for their “role in the brutality of the Cuban regime towards the Cuban people”.
Earlier, the Trump administration also reported its intention to strengthen visas for Cuban and foreign officials linked to the medical missions of Havana around the world.
Rubio described the medical program as that where “health professionals are” rented “by other countries at high prices”, but “most revenues are kept by the Cuban authorities”.
In 1999, after the Bolivarian Revolution of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Cuba sent medical staff and educators to the country. In return, Cuba bought Venezuelan oil at prices below the market, developing the idea of exporting health professionals in Havana as a source of income.
Some 30,000 Cuban medical workers were sent to Venezuela in the first 10 years of the “Oil for Doctors” program.
Cuba then received a hard currency to set up permanent medical missions in countries like South Africa, Brazil, Ecuador and Qatar.
