Picture: Gilberto González García
Today, December 10, marks the 67th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a date established by the United Nations as International Human Rights Day.
Cuba celebrates, rightly, its internationally acknowledged achievements in the promotion and respect of all rights for all people, not only within its borders, but in dozens of countries, where Cuban physicians, teachers, engineers and other professionals and technicians work precisely to support economic and social programs that have an impact on the improvement of the exercise of the fundamental rights of the peoples.
More than 50,000 Cuban health workers currently offer their services in 67 countries -in 32 of them the Comprehensive Health Program is being used, according to reports by the Ministry of Public Health.
At total of 25,000 out of the above mentioned figure are physicians and cooperation also includes the Operation Miracle project, the work of the Henry Reeve Brigade in Africa, and the modality of technical assistance compensated in 17 nations and in 16 with Cuban medical services.
In 2014, Cuba chaired the World Health Assembly for the first time, in which ministers from 120 nations congratulated and praised its contribution to other peoples in the field of health.
Margaret Chan, director of the World Health Organization (WHO), praised at the time Cuba’s contributions in that field, and on several occasions reiterated her gratitude in the face of the call to fight the Ebola virus.
Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, during his visit to Cuba, toured the Latin American Medical School, founded by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, in 1999, and stressed the high training of the institution, which has graduated more than 24,000 young people from various parts of the world.
Last year, Cuban health workers saw over 1.2 billion patients and attended two million births in several countries.
Paradoxically, December 10 also marks the 112th anniversary of the establishment by the United States of a naval base that usurps a piece of Cuban territory in Guantanamo province.
In one of many violations of the actual letter of the treaty imposed to the nascent Republic of Cuba, an illegal prison for alleged terrorists captured in many countries has been installed there.
It is a horrible place, a poor imitation of Dante’s Inferno, where hundreds of prisoners have suffered, for many years, the systematic violation of all their human rights, although it has been shown that the vast majority of them are innocent, and that none has been held charges or have been subjected to trials in which they could defend themselves.
Tom Wilner, a consultant with the law firm Shearman & Sterling, one of the most famous lawyers in Washington, acknowledged that that prison remains a symbol of a country, the United States, which disregards democracy: “We have to close Guantánamo, because it is expensive, inefficient, and damages our international position.”
Wilner explains that “The treaty of the U.S. with Cuba for the leasing of Guantánamo reads that Cuba has sovereignty over the base, but the United States has full jurisdiction and control. In other words, while it is technically a Cuban sovereign territory, the U.S. has exercised all the power and authority over that place.”
And later he adds: “The Bush administration defended the legal argument that Guantanamo could operate the way it wanted and do whatever it wanted to prisoners there without any legal check.”
The violation of human rights is not something new at the Guantanamo naval base.
Since its opening, and until the revolutionary triumph of January, 1959, Cuban workers had been exploited, vilified and discriminated against, event to the point of torture and murder.
The Marines used to leave the premises to commit all sorts of crimes against the Guantanamo population, from public scandal, to physical assault and rape.
Afterwards and for decades, the base was the source of provocations against Cuban authorities, and also served as a concentration camp for thousands of Cuban emigrants caught at sea while trying to reach U.S. shores, attracted by the so-called American way of live and by the criminal Cuban Adjustment Act.
The coincidence of International Human Rights Day with the 112th anniversary of the Guantanamo Naval Base reveals the inconceivable hypocrisy of the media campaign of the government of the United States and its allies against Cuba, especially in that field, where the Cuban Revolution is an example to the entire planet.
Translated by Telma Rodríguez
