Cuban doctors

in the spotlight again

According to the IHateCastro blogger, who may be a little biased:

Cuban Doctors are slaves for the Cuban State..."In any case, the truly humiliated and offended people are the Cuban doctors, those 65,000 fine professionals -- generally devoted and selfless -- who usually work and live under miserable conditions in Cuba. They are the comandante's favorite slaves: He rents them out, sells them, gives them away, lends them, exchanges them for oil or uses them as an alibi to justify his dictatorship."

Well anyway, the issue of the Cuban doctors in Namibia is that some of them have limited enthusiasm for returning to Cuba (the Cuban government know that, which is why their passports are confiscated by the Embassy while the doctors are working in Namibia, and only given back to them on boarding the plane home!). To overcome this, they have obtained US-produced international travel documents; which allow them to leave whatever country they happen to be in, and enter the United States. The US embassy of course is more than delighted to issue these documents to the Cuban medicos.

The next step is easy to guess - the Namibian government, independent in most respects except that in dealings with Cuba, it behaves as an abject and subservient colony - refuses to recognise these travel documents, so that the Cuban doctors are trapped and apparently have gone into hiding.

The over-riding factor is that no-one in the Namibian administration will ever breathe a word in criticism of Cuba (did they pay that important a part in the liberation struggle, or why do we owe them an uncapped obligation?)

But it's a no-win situation for Namibia. If the government bows to the norms of human rights and international law, it accepts the legality of the documents and lets the doctors leave to whatever destination they want. But if they do that, they upset Dr. Castro (or whichever nepotistic sidekick is now running the country) and Cuba will send no more doctors. Since no indigenous or White doctors will go to work in the rural areas, because the salary will not keep them in the golf clubs and Range Rovers to which they are accustomed, most people in the rural areas will die. So we have to have the Cuban doctors. So...