Well other than the largest presence on the ground since the disaster ocurred in Haiti, nowhere I guess (ghosts?).
“One major international news agency’s list of donor nations credited Cuba with sending over 30 doctors to Haiti, whereas the real figure stands at more than 350, including 280 young Haitian doctors who graduated from Cuba. The final figure accounts for a combined total of 930 health professionals in all Cuban medical teams making it the largest medical contingent on the ground.”
This is not just Haiti, Cuba has a history of being among the first responders to crisis situations worldwide.
“Cuban medical teams played a key role in the wake of the Indian Ocean Tsunami and provided the largest contingent of doctors after the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. They also stayed the longest among international medical teams treating the victims of the 2006 Indonesian earthquake.
In the Pakistan relief operation the US and Europe dispatched medical teams. Each had a base camp with most doctors deployed for a month. The Cubans, however, deployed seven major base camps, operated 32 field hospitals and stayed for six months.”
Cuba, a nation still in an economic stranglehold enforced the the US, still has the resources to send to other disaster stricken countries around the world. Do they vie for international resources or media time like other NGO’s? Rarely. No, rather they are have been, on many occasions, the first ones on the ground and the last ones to leave stricken areas of the world.
How do they do it? Cuba is a poor island nation, but yet they get it done. There is not glitzy flavour of the day fundraising and the enormous overhead that goes along with such hoopla; they just get there and start helping people to the best of their limited ability.
Do we hear about the outstanding work that Cuban doctors are doing in our filtered and standardized media. Not a peep of course. Being on the official US enemy list makes you magically disappear from positive media coverage.
Cuba sets the gold standard on what effective crisis response should look like. Imagine how much Cuba could achieve if the West were not determined to strangle their nation economically.




8 comments
February 19, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Bleatmop
Thanks for writing about this! The world needs to know about stuff like this. Too many people only know the USian propaganda. Cuba is a beautiful country with good people in it, people who suffer greatly because of USian politics.
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February 19, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Moe
In the first weeks, I was looking to see if anyone was reporting on the Cuban presence. They weren’t of course. For years, decades I guess, they’ve been the doctors to poorer areas of Latin America. We sent guns. They sent doctors. Cuba’s medical outreach never gets any coverage in his country. They’re a remarkable people. Shame on us for almost 50 years of embargos. Shame on us.
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February 20, 2010 at 8:38 am
The Arbourist
My pleasure. I have had the opportunity to travel to Cuba and experience a small portion of the country and its people. I loved everyone moment of my trip, it was a most memorable time for me.
I agree Bleatmop, sometimes it is hard to find accurate media sources to get the information one needs. I find myself looking to Al-Jazeera more often now, just to properly frame news stories these days.
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February 20, 2010 at 8:40 am
The Arbourist
There is some hope Moe, perhaps with the current administration they might relax a few more of the sanctions. I believe I heard bleatings of ‘a new spirit of cooperation’ between the USA and Cuba when the Cubans allowed US rescue planes to fly through their airspace.
It would be nice if that became a opportunity to have the two nations meet and start talking again.
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February 20, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Moe
Amen. And by the way – great minds and all – I’ve been checking Al jazeera a lot too. Except for the hating Israel part, they’re a pretty fine news org.
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February 24, 2010 at 5:33 pm
bjohns15
Cuba is also the Latin American Gold standard for repression of its people. Why ignore the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo? Below is a small story on it,.
http://bryanjohnsonblog.com/2010/02/23/cuban-dissident-murdered-by-castro/
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February 24, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Moe
Admiring them for humanitarian assistance does not equal admiring them for everything. Nor does condemning them for political repression mean condemning them for everything.
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February 24, 2010 at 7:00 pm
bjohns15
Good point, Moe. Yet, this blog, and may that write on what good Cuba has done, actively ignore the bad. I find it unacceptable.
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