Cuban Mission in Venezuela in Danger

Cuban Mission in Venezuela in Danger / Juan Juan Almeida
Posted on June 24, 2014

They add up to thousands, the Cubans, health professionals, who have
been sent to Venezuela since the first Cuban Medical Mission landed in
Caracas December 16, 1999.

Our technicians, doctors, nurses; they continue and will continue
fulfilling the Hippocratic Oath in the South American country and the
sacred duty of offering medical attention to all who need it.

The enthusiasm of the first collaborations has eroded, today all the
personnel of the Cuban medical cooperation seem to be transitioning to a
bad moment, full of insecurity and uncertainty, because among many other
situations, they confront the discontent of a wide sector of the population.

So shows a classified report dated last Friday, June 13, signed by Dr.
Victor Gauter, chief of all the missions, and sent with urgency to the
Cuban Public Health Ministry.

The document in question asserts that in the Carabobo state alone,
located in the north central coast of Venezuela, in a central region of
the country, in the first week of June, that is to say, from Sunday the
first until Saturday the seventh, the following points were given which
I quote verbatim because of their importance:

- Nine Cuban cooperators were threatened by Venezuelan nationals. Among
the main causes of these threats are the relationship of a couple of
married nationals and political issues.

- Two collaborators deserted, one stomatologist and one a rehabilitation
technician from Valencia township.

- Five volunteer workers were attacked in different townships of the State.

- Two popular medical offices were stoned, one in the Valencia township
and the other in the Naguanagua location.

- In the Bolivar and Marti CDI, located in the Guacara township, they
hung posters that said, "Cubans out."

- At the "La Libertad" stomatology clinic, ASIC Bolivar, also in the
Guacara township, they opened a hole in the wall and they stole all the
instruments and halogen light from the display case.

- Eight collaborators were urgently hospitalized on presenting symptoms
of dengue fever.

It is a lot for only one state, and too much for a week. But before such
concrete events, with clear traces of a serious conflict that looms, the
directors from Havana responded with their habitual irresponsibility
and, without abandoning the repeated formula of false humanism, they
sent an official who travels states with the mission of recruiting
personnel in order to form groups of Cuban computer experts linked to
social networks who will flood Twitter uploading photos of achievements
and "red Sundays."

Come on, as if real problems could be controlled with visual solutions.
We should not forget that the damages caused to people, with the sole
objective of politicizing, have not only consequences but also guilty
parties.

Translated by mlk.
18 June 2014

Source: Cuban Mission in Venezuela in Danger / Juan Juan Almeida |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuban-mission-in-venezuela-in-danger-juan-juan-almeida/