US says Caribbean has alternatives to Cuban medical missions

The Unit­ed States says Caribbean coun­tries have al­ter­na­tives to Cu­ba’s over­seas med­ical mis­sions, as it re­newed calls to end what it de­scribed as forced labour linked to the pro­gramme and in­sist­ed it has on­ly re­cent­ly raised the is­sue pub­licly.

In a state­ment post­ed to­day on the US Em­bassy Bridgetown so­cial me­dia page, Wash­ing­ton said there are “al­ter­na­tive meth­ods avail­able for Caribbean na­tions to re­cruit for­eign med­ical work­ers and eth­i­cal­ly meet the health­care needs of their peo­ple.” It warned that for­eign gov­ern­ments which con­tin­ue to par­tic­i­pate in Cu­ba’s med­ical mis­sions, de­spite what it de­scribed as known hu­man rights abus­es, be­come com­plic­it in the ex­ploita­tion of Cuban med­ical work­ers.

The Unit­ed States said it is com­mit­ted to hold­ing Cuban regime of­fi­cials and oth­ers ac­count­able for fa­cil­i­tat­ing forced labour and urged gov­ern­ments and cit­i­zens to re­ject the pro­gramme and de­mand re­spect for hu­man rights.

The state­ment comes amid re­gion­al scruti­ny of Cu­ba’s med­ical mis­sions fol­low­ing com­ments by Saint Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter Philip J Pierre, who said the Unit­ed States had in­struct­ed his gov­ern­ment to stop send­ing stu­dents to Cu­ba to study med­i­cine. Wash­ing­ton has since said it has not re­cent­ly held dis­cus­sions with Saint Lu­cia on in­ter­na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion and re­spects coun­tries’ sov­er­eign de­ci­sions.

Pierre lat­er said there are no plans to with­draw Saint Lu­cian med­ical stu­dents cur­rent­ly in Cu­ba.

Mean­while, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment said it has re­ceived no such di­rec­tive from the Unit­ed States and con­firmed that its med­ical train­ing arrange­ments with Cu­ba re­main un­changed.