Cuba deserves Nobel Peace Prize

Published Sep 23, 2015

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Shannon Ebrahim

Cuba has taught us all the essence of what it means to be human. Not only has the tiny impoverished island sent more health care professionals to fight Ebola in West Africa than any other country, but the one Cuban doctor who contracted Ebola and was sent home for treatment insisted on going back to help. How many of us can say we would ever consider doing such a thing?

Cubans are inspired by the maxim of the 19th century writer revolutionary José Martí, “Patria es humanidad” – All of humanity is our homeland. What distinguishes Cubans is that they not only believe in this maxim, but they practice it to the fullest.

Astounded by Cubans’ self-sacrifice both in West Africa and around the world, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon summed up their contribution in January 2015: “They are always the first to arrive and the last to leave, and they always remain after the crisis. Cuba has a lot to show the entire world.”

This is no exaggeration, as Cuba’s contribution to the developing world has been exemplary. Cuba’s leading role in West Africa in fighting Ebola is just the latest example of its selfless service to humanity. The island has more medical staff working in the global south than all of the G7 countries combined.

The media in the industrialised world has paid little attention to Cuba’s contribution, but at the UN, Cuba’s record in medical co-operation has not gone unnoticed.

Margaret Chan, the Director General of the World Health Organisation, summed up Cuba’s role in September 2014: “Cuba is famous throughout the world because of its capacity to train excellent doctors and nurses.

“It is also famous for its generosity and solidarity toward developing countries. We therefore nominate the Cuban Medical Internationalism Programme for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

As the word spread through social media about Cuba’s extraordinary generosity, a Facebook campaign has taken off across the globe to get Cuba recognised for its efforts by supporting its nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the autumn of 2014, when West Africa was devastated by Ebola and the World Health Organisation (WHO) appealed for urgent medical assistance, Cuba was the first country to respond, and 15 000 Cuban medical personnel volunteered.

Altogether Cuba sent 461 doctors and nurses to help fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which killed 9 000 and infected more than 22 000, according to the WHO.

While thousands more Cubans were prepared to go to West Africa, they had to serve under the UN and WHO, which did not have the necessary logistics, equipment or security to accommodate all the volunteers.

This also meant that it took time for the victims of Ebola to start receiving treatment. Cuba’s medical staff in West Africa were part of the Henry Reeve Brigade which was initially established in 2005 to provide emergency medical support.

The great irony is that the Henry Reeve Brigade was formed as a rapid response to assist New Orleans in the medical emergency in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, despite the fact that Cuba had been suffering for decades under the US economic embargo.

The Cubans even named the brigade Henry Reeve after an American General who had fought in the Cuban rebel army in the late 19th century in the anti-colonial struggle against Spain. The brigade never got to assist the Americans suffering from Katrina’s devastation as former US president George Bush refused Cuban help.

Cuba’s humanitarianism has known no bounds, and the US was not the only country Cuba was prepared to assist in spite of its political and economic isolation. Cuban doctors have been sent to work in many countries with which it never had diplomatic relations.

The most significant evidence of Cuba’s contribution towards global health care and fighting Ebola has come from John Kirk, Professor of Latin American Studies at Dalhousie University in Canada. He has spent the past 10 years documenting Cuba’s medical internationalism, and has also written to the Nobel Peace Prize committee, nominating Cuba’s Medical Internationalism Programme for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kirk highlighted to the committee that as of January 2015, there were 51 847 Cuban medical personnel (50 percent of them physicians) working in 67 countries, mainly in the developing world.

In an attempt to ensure sustainable health care systems in many developing countries, Cuba established the Latin American Medical School in 1999. A total of 24 486 students from 123 countries have graduated as doctors from the school at no cost to the students.

Cuba has also established medical facilities in 15 countries, and is currently training medical students from South Africa, Ghana, Djibouti, Mozambique, Congo, Uganda, Nicaragua and Ecuador. A total of 2 700 South African students are currently studying medicine in Cuba.

According to Kirk, Cuba has saved 5.5 million lives in developing countries with its medical personnel having performed 10.8 million surgical operations, attended 2.3 million births and given 12.4 million vaccinations. Operation Miracle has restored the sight of 3.4 million patients from more than 30 countries, at no charge to the patients.

Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi supports Cuba’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, telling Independent Media: “We lend our support to any campaign to honour the contribution Cuba has made to health care and the fight against Ebola in West Africa.”

Motsoaledi is particularly impressed by Cuba’s primary health care system. “We want to fashion our own health care system along the lines of their system as it is just so good,” he said.

According to Motsoaledi, South Africa used to send 80 South Africans a year to Cuba for medical training, which had been increased from 2013 to 1 000 a year. “We need these doctors for primary health care in South Africa,” he said.

What saddens Motsoaledi is the fact that Cuba has been so generous to the world with regard to medical support, but its own population continues to suffer, under the sanctions regime, to get affordable medicines.

“After we were free in 1994, I went to Cuba in solidarity and to protest against the economic blockade. We continue to call for the immediate lifting of sanctions.”

Cuba’s Ambassador to South Africa, Carlos de Cossio, says that the exemptions the US has made to the sanctions regime in terms of medicines are not practical.

“While it is true that a Cuban can go to a pharmacy in the US and buy an aspirin, it is almost impossible to import medicines to Cuba from the US – which are produced there more cheaply and of better quality,” De Cossio told Independent Media.

“Cuban ships cannot go to the US to get the medicines, we need a licence from the US Treasury to import medicine – which is complicated to obtain, and there is no banking relationship between the two countries, making the whole process of importing medicines fraught with difficulties.”

The unfairness of denying Cuban children affordable medicines due to an antiquated and hypocritical economic blockade, when Cuba has done so much for the developing world in terms of treating and saving their children, is the ultimate irony.

It is time for us to give back something to Cuba, even if it is merely recognition and honour for its laudable medical internationalism.

There has never been a more deserving nation to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

l Ebrahim is Foreign Editor

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