The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said this week that she will maintain the mission program with Cuban doctors in the country, despite pressure from the United States government for Latin American and Caribbean countries to break these partnerships.
“This is a very useful bilateral agreement for Mexico,” said the leftist president at a press conference on Wednesday (25), according to information from the Associated Press.
“We cannot forget, first of all, that it was Cuban doctors who came to help us during the pandemic [de Covid-19] under very difficult conditions”, added the president.
Sheinbaum claimed that, in Mexico, Cuban doctors receive direct remuneration and that there is no forced labor regime, an argument used by the US to pressure countries in the region to cancel these agreements.
“They receive what is owed to them; that is, they receive their salaries. It is not that they come here and the Cuban government pays them whatever they want,” said the president.
In recent months, the governments of Honduras, Guatemala, Jamaica, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago have suspended agreements in the area with Cuba or revised their terms, which led Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez to criticize Washington on social media.
“With strong pressure and blackmail, the US government is acting in Latin America and the Caribbean to ensure that Cuban medical brigades leave all countries in the region where they are currently stationed,” he said this week.
Since 2018, a lawsuit against the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), filed by four Cuban doctors who worked in Brazil at Mais Médicos, has been pending in the United States federal court.
According to the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, these professionals claim that “they had no choice but to go to Brazil; their documents were confiscated and their circulation was limited in Brazil; they were forced to indoctrinate the local population; their families were held hostage in Cuba; they were monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week by Cuban intelligence agents employed by PAHO; and Cuba and PAHO confiscated 80% to 90% of the amount paid by Brazil for their services.”
