JAMAICA | US Sanctions on Cuban Medical Program Condemned as “Inhumane” by Jamaica Solidarity Movement

KINGSTON, Jamaica,  – The Jamaica Solidarity Movement with Cuba has strongly condemned US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s decision to impose sanctions on countries benefiting from Cuba’s International Medical Collaboration program.

In a statement released today, the organization describes the move as threatening healthcare access for millions worldwide, targeting a humanitarian initiative that has been a lifeline for healthcare systems across the developing world since 1960, when Cuba first dispatched medical teams to Chile following a devastating earthquake.

The statement highlights The Gleaner’s powerful March 3 editorial, “Leave Cuban Medics,” which captured the essence of this misguided policy: “If Mr. Rubio possesses a scintilla of decency, he should immediately rescind the policy whose hurt will be felt not only by Cuba but by poor people in Africa, Asia and the Americas, including several Caribbean countries, Jamaica among them. It will cost lives.”

According to the Jamaica Solidarity Movement, this callous disregard for human life echoes the USA’s complicity in other humanitarian crises, regardless of which party occupies the White House.

The organization points out that the same administration enabling apartheid Israel’s campaign has provided weapons that have claimed 48,450 Palestinian lives and injured 111,852 more since October 2023—70% being women and children under 5.

The statement notes it “speaks volumes that Trump’s first official visitor in his second term was an International Criminal Court fugitive, effectively ‘harboring a criminal’ on the world stage.”

The organization’s statement draws a stark contrast between approaches: while the United States—the world’s wealthiest nation with unparalleled resources—amassed over one million COVID-19 deaths by mid-2023, Cuba charted a different course.

Despite enduring six decades of economic “strangulation” through an illegal blockade, intensified by 243 additional sanctions during the pandemic, Cuba developed its own vaccines and extended lifesaving expertise to 56 countries through the Henry Reeves Brigade (HRB), including Jamaica.

The statement celebrates this display of international solidarity that earned the medical brigade a nomination for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, embodying the philosophy articulated by Fidel Castro: “Doctors not bombs. Our doctors will go in the outermost and inhospitable places where they are needed in the darkest corners of the world.”

The Jamaica Solidarity Movement concludes by calling for defense of Cuba’s right to self-determination and extending solidarity across continents against what they describe as “a 21st century revival of authoritarian ideology.” WiredJA