WSJ warns that the hiring of Cuban doctor’s fuels fears of AMLO’s hidden anti-democratic agenda. U.S. newspaper warned of the lack of transparency in the agreement between the Mexican government and Havana.
MEXICO (The Wall Street Journal) – “Like Chávez, AMLO is fond of demagogy and fomenting hatred for businessmen,” says an article in the U.S. newspaper The Wall Street Journal, which analyzes the hiring of hundreds of Cuban doctors by the Mexican government to deal with the health crisis by the COVID-19. Among other things, they emphasize that with this decision, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, shows himself more compatible with a regime type government than the democratic one he assured while he was campaigning.
The hiring of 585 doctors and nurses was made possible by an agreement signed between the Institute of Health for Welfare (Insabi), the capital’s Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Administration and Finance, for the care of patients with coronavirus. Insabi allocated USD 6.2 million.
In an article titled “Cuban Medical Brigades to Mexico,” WSJ begins by comparing López Obrador to Venezuelan Chávez, noting that decisions like this one by Cuba’s medical personnel “further stoke fears that the president has a hidden anti-democratic agenda”. They remember that the late Hugo Chavez, after democratically elected, turned Venezuela into a dictatorship.
“One of the reasons the Cuban medical ‘brigades’ are surprising Mexicans is that Cuba has a reputation for sending medical personnel abroad to do work for which they are not trained. At the same time, Havana also has a history of using education, social work, and health care as cover for spreading Castroism and building intelligence networks in democratic countries,” they say.
It should be noted, precisely on the subject of the lack of trained medical personnel, that the Mexican doctors who are already working with the Cubans claimed that the latter is not even specialists; they refuse to follow protocols established by the nosocomial; and they receive more food resources than the national elements.
“Another objection is the lack of transparency. For decades, Havana has benefited from its export workers and paid them a pittance. It is unknown if that is what is happening here because the terms of the agreement between Mexico and Cuba have not been made public”.
The text recalls that the Cuban independent media “Diario de Cuba” reported on 8 June that it had “obtained details of a contract” signed by Cuba, the Mexican Institute of Health for Welfare, and the Mexico City government. According to its terms, Cuban doctors and nurses are working in several hospitals in the Mexican capital with a contract covering 585 workers at a price of about 6.2 million dollars.
They also add that Oliva López Arellano, the health secretary of Mexico City, assured that she would provide the Cuban media with a copy of the contract; they are still waiting for it.
“Does Mexico pay the workers directly or is the money sent to Havana,” is one of the questions WSJ raises, indicating that if it were the second case, it would be totally in line with the medical export missions that Cuba has been running for many years throughout Latin America. By controlling the payroll, “Havana has been able to reduce the number of workers and keep most of the income”.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady is the author of this text. She recalls that last January, she reported on four Cuban doctors who had escaped from the program they were in Brazil and are now suing the Pan American Health Organization for helping Cuba keep them in the form of modern slavery.
“López Arellano told the Diario de Cuba that the doctors participating in the mission do so voluntarily. But doctors who fled Brazil say Cubans have few options when the regime asks them to go abroad. The refusal signals the end of a career,” the article reports, recalling that the doctors who deserted the country claim that their salaries, set by Cuba, kept them in poverty and their Cuban caregivers denied them the right to mingle with the locals and come and go as they pleased. They were also ordered to share regime propaganda with their patients.
The text also emphasizes that even if Cuba compensated such workers in Mexico fairly, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about why Lopez Obrador recruited them.
TWJ concludes: “Many Mexicans believed in AMLO’s word when he said he was a Democrat. But not being transparent about this agreement with Cuba undermines that claim.
