Page 1 of the Sunday New York Times for March 17 contained the start of a lengthy report that at least some of the Cuban doctors on medical missions in Venezuela had been ordered not to use oxygen for medical emergencies, but instead to use them closer to the May 2018 election as a means of forcing patients to vote for Nicolás Maduro for president.[1]
The Times Report
According to 16 Cuban doctors who were interviewed by the Times, there was “a system of deliberate political manipulation in which their services were wielded to secure votes for the governing Socialist Party, often through coercion. Many tactics were used, they said, from simple reminders to vote for the government to denying treatment for opposition supporters with life-threatening ailments.”
In addition, “the Cuban doctors said they were ordered to go door-to-door in impoverished neighborhoods, offering medicine and warning residents that they would be cut off from medical services if they did not vote for Mr. Maduro or his candidates. . . . [Many of these Cuban doctors] said their superiors directed them to issue the same threats during closed-door consultations with patients seeking treatment for chronic diseases.” One doctor also said “she and others were told to give precise voting instructions to elderly patients, whose infirmities made them particularly easy to manipulate.”
“One former Cuban supervisor said that she and other foreign medical workers were given counterfeit identification cards to vote in an election. “
Prior to publication of this article, the Venezuelan government did not respond to the Times’ journalist while the Cuban government denied the above assertions by the doctors and bragged about the work of many Cuban medical missions around the world.
Cuban Response [2]
On March 19 CubaDebate, an official website of the Cuban government, mounted the following vigorous attack on the Times” article:
- “In a meager exercise of journalism that says so much to defend, NYTimes forgets the contrast of sources and does not interview any Cuban doctor in practice in Venezuela, does not talk to any patient, does not seek the opinion of the management of the Cuban Medical Brigade.”
- “Objectivity is not necessary when the clear propaganda objective is to align with the retrograde forces that in the United States seek, by any means, regime change in Venezuela. The same ones that want to see the government of Maduro, supported by millions of Venezuelans, as a regime that is only sustained by the support of the military command and the Cuban government.”
- “They are the same forces that promoted the outrageous theft of Cuban medical personnel around the world, with the brazen [U.S. Medical} Parole program [for Cuban medical professionals] which Marco Rubio and others now intend to reactivate, in his fierce and failed anti-Cuban campaign. It is not strange then that Senator Marco Rubio left yesterday hurriedly to tweet the work of Mr. Casey as a sign of the “decisive Cuban influence in Venezuela.” Or that [new Senator] Rick Scott has put on his Twitter account, in Spanish and English, ‘Using medicine as a political weapon to intimidate patients to vote for the dictator of Nicolas Maduro is outrageous, inhuman and disgusting.” Where we see chaos and instability in Latin America, we also see the traces of the Castro regime. This has to end! ‘”
- “The disgusting and what has to end is the lie as political practice and communication in the empire; what has to end is the alleged attempt from Washington to impose its designs on the rest of the world.”
- “No true Cuban doctor denies the service and much less risks the life of a patient to achieve political ends. They do not do it in Cuba with the mercenaries financed by the United States to try to destroy the Revolution, nor did they do it with the mercenaries who invaded us through the Ciénaga de Zapata in 1961; least they will do it abroad, where tens of thousands have come to offer their solidarity and knowledge.”
- “ On the contrary, the . . .[performance] of Cuban health workers in dozens of countries around the world has been exemplary, where they have saved millions of lives and cured millions of other patients. No other nation on the planet cares for so many patients outside its borders. Its work has been rewarded by governments, parliaments, NGOs and even the World Health Organization itself.”
- “Since the Cuban medical collaboration began in Venezuela, more than 140,000 health workers have worked there. Thanks to this effort, at the end of 2018, 127 million 168 thousand medical consultations were carried out throughout the South American nation and at the beginning of 2019, 2,000 new Cuban doctors joined the Barrio Adentro mission to strengthen the health care of the Venezuelan people.”
- “In 55 years, Cuba has fulfilled 600,000 internationalist missions in 164 nations, in which more than 400,000 health workers have participated, who in many cases have fulfilled this honorable task on more than one occasion.”
- “The New York Times publishes these propaganda pieces in the Gobbelian style. The extensive and admirable mission of Cuban doctors throughout the world is much more powerful than the gross lies.”
The same day (March 19) Cuba President Díaz-Canel criticized the Times ‘article in this tweet (translated from Spanish): “Cuban [medicos] can never be slandered. Their extraordinary human work on lands that the empire calls “dark corners of the world”, deny the [Times] and its reporter Casey. Feeding Marco Rubio’s hate war against Cuba and Venezuela is a crime. #SomosCuba.”
The Times Response [3]
The Times immediately responded to these Cuban criticisms with the following tweet (translated from Spanish): “Our story is based on interviews with 16 members of Cuba’s medical missions in Venezuela, who described a political manipulation system in which their services were used to get votes for the ruling party. We Back our story. This kind of rigorous journalism is at the core of our work.”
Conclusion
The Times article sets forth very damaging allegations about the Cuban medical professionals in Venezuela. Apparently the allegations are supported by interviews with 16 Cuban medical professionals. The Times also attempted to obtain corroboration from the Venezuelan and Cuban governments with the latter denying the allegations, as reported in the article.
The key question is whether the 16 Cuban medical professionals told the truth to the Times’ journalist.
At least some of these Cubans no longer live or practice in Venezuela, and they might have a motive to lie or shade the truth in order to curry favor from the U.S. government for entry into the U.S., especially if it re-institutes its Parole for Cuban Medical Professionals program, as some Trump Administration officials and U.S. senators have proposed.[4]
On the other hand, the Cuban government has a strong interest in maintaining its lengthy and very supportive relationship with Venezuela, including the maintenance of Maduro as president.
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[1] Casey, Trading Lifesaving Treatment for Maduro Voters, N.Y. Times (Mar. 17, 2019).
[2] Chasing Lies: The New York Times against the ethics of Cuban health, CubaDebate (Mar. 19, 2019); ‘The New York Times’ to Díaz-Canel: ‘Rigorous journalism is the core of our work,’ Diario de Cuba (Mar. 20, 2019)
[3] See n. 2.
[4] See posts listed in the “Cuban Medical Personnel & U.S.” section of List of Posts to dwkcommenies—Topical: CUBA.
