A Letter to the Secretary of State Regarding His Misguided Words About Cuban Medical Teams and Covid
Secretary Blinken might want to consider the extant Trumpian influence within his Department.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?513120-1/secretary-state-blinken-delivers-remarks-human-trafficking-report 12:12 is the Cuba reference during his introduction to the annual Human Trafficking Report
Dear Secretary Blinken,
You gave an excellent and thoughtful presentation at your introduction to the “2021 Trafficking in Persons Report” except for your comments on Cuban medical aid programs. That section sounded like political propaganda from the Trump era, especially with an implicit comparison to China's treatment of the Uighurs.
Politicized verbal excess does give you something in common with your Cuban counterpart. Hopefully there will come a day when the two of you can reflect on the deleterious impact of domestic politics on your role as diplomats.
It was regrettable to give prominence to a shoddy section of the report based on biased attacks from hard line Cuban Americans and hold-over allies in the State Department rather than objective professional analysis.
It appears that some balancing language was inserted, no doubt a struggle. But the authors should feel shame to have written, "the government used the pandemic as an opportunity to expand the reach of its exploitative export medical services, sending more than 2,770 workers to 26 countries to provide medical care."
Would it have been too hard to acknowledge the motivation of the volunteer participants, the value of the short term services they provided and the appreciation of the countries that hosted them? Rather than offering tribute to their sacrifice, lost lives are used as a basis of criticism, "at least four Cuban medical professionals died after contracting COVID-19, three in Venezuela and one in Angola."
Trump's response to Covid was to force every Peace Corps volunteer in the world to abruptly abandon her or his post without approval of or even consultation with the host country. For whatever mix of motives Cuba acted more honorably in sending medical volunteers to provide humanitarian assistance despite the danger.
On the topic of more conventional analysis of human trafficking, this language would be funny if it were not symptomatic of the inherent bias that distorts the credibility of the report, "The government did not report investigating cases of trafficking in 2020, compared with 15 potential cases of trafficking investigated in 2019.... Authorities did not report any new investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of foreign nationals for purchasing sex from child sex trafficking victims, compared with five foreign nationals imprisoned in 2019 from Italy, Serbia, India, France, and the Netherlands."
Because of Covid there were far fewer foreign tourists in Cuba in 2020 to be charged. In addition, Cuban police had higher priorities, as did ours, from the pandemic crisis.
It was not only the US embargo vote at the UN that was a step backwards. Ambassador Power's abstention address honored the work of Cuba’s Henry Reeve Brigade and the spirit of international medical collaboration.
I hope that the Administration’s review of Cuba policy can include an honest and balanced evaluation of its medical assistance programs, treating them as soft-power we should compete or cooperate with positively rather than attempt to destroy.
Sincerely,
John McAuliff
Executive Director, Founder
Fund
for Reconciliation and Development
Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru
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