We Send Doctors, No Soldiers

In my Reflection of January 14, two days after the catastrophe in Haiti, which destroyed that neighboring sister nation, I wrote: “In the area of healthcare and others the Haitian people has received the cooperation of Cuba, even though this is a small and blockaded country. Approximately 400 doctors and healthcare workers are helping the Haitian people free of charge. Our doctors are working every day at 227 of the 237 communes of that country. On the other hand, no less than 400 young Haitians have been graduated as medical doctors in our country. They will now work alongside the reinforcement that traveled there yesterday to save lives in that critical situation. Thus, up to one thousand doctors and healthcare personnel can be mobilized without any special effort; and most are already there willing to cooperate with any other State that wishes to save Haitian lives and rehabilitate the injured.”

“The head of our medical brigade has informed that ‘the situation is difficult but we are already saving lives.’”

Hour after hour, day and night, the Cuban health professionals have started to work nonstop in the few facilities that were able to stand, in tents, and out in the parks or open-air spaces, since the population feared new aftershocks.

The situation was far more serious than was originally thought. Tens of thousands of injured were clamoring for help in the streets of Port-au-Prince; innumerable persons laid, dead or alive, under the rubbled clay or adobe used in the construction of the houses where the overwhelming majority of the population lived. Buildings, even the most solid, collapsed. Besides, it was necessary to look for the Haitian doctors who had graduated at the Latin American Medicine School throughout all the destroyed neighborhoods. Many of them were affected, either directly or indirectly, by the tragedy.

Some UN officials were trapped in their dormitories and tens of lives were lost, including the lives of several chiefs of MINUSTAH, a UN contingent. The fate of hundreds of other members of its staff was unknown.

Haiti’s Presidential Palace crumbled. Many public facilities, including several hospitals, were left in ruins.

The catastrophe shocked the whole world, which was able to see what was going on through the images aired by the main international TV networks. Governments from everywhere in the planet announced they would be sending rescue experts, food, medicines, equipment and other resources.

In conformity with the position publicly announced by Cuba, medical staff from different countries –namely Spain, Mexico, and Colombia, among others- worked very hard alongside our doctors at the facilities they had improvised. Organizations such as PAHO and other friendly countries like Venezuela and other nations supplied medicines and other resources. The impeccable behavior of Cuban professionals and their leaders was absolutely void of chauvinism and remained out of the limelight.

Cuba, just as it had done under similar circumstances, when Hurricane Katrina caused huge devastation in the city of New Orleans and the lives of thousands of American citizens were in danger, offered to send a full medical brigade to cooperate with the people of the United States, a country that, as is well known, has vast resources. But at that moment what was needed were trained and well- equipped doctors to save lives. Given New Orleans geographical location, more than one thousand doctors of the “Henry Reeve” contingent mobilized and readied to leave for that city at any time of the day or the night, carrying with them the necessary medicines and equipment. It never crossed our mind that the President of that nation would reject the offer and let a number of Americans that could have been saved to die. The mistake made by that government was perhaps the inability to understand that the people of Cuba do not see in the American people an enemy; it does not blame it for the aggressions our homeland has suffered.

Nor was that government capable of understanding that our country does not need to beg for favors or forgiveness of those who, for half a century now, have been trying, to no avail, to bring us to our knees.

Our country, also in the case of Haiti, immediately responded to the US authorities requests to fly over the eastern part of Cuba as well as other facilities they needed to deliver assistance, as quickly as possible, to the American and Haitian citizens who had been affected by the earthquake.

Such have been the principles characterizing the ethical behavior of our people. Together with its equanimity and firmness, these have been the ever-present features of our foreign policy. And this is known only too well by whoever have been our adversaries in the international arena.

Cuba will firmly stand by the opinion that the tragedy that has taken place in Haiti, the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, is a challenge to the richest and more powerful countries of the world.

Haiti is a net product of the colonial, capitalist and imperialist system imposed on the world. Haiti’s slavery and subsequent poverty were imposed from abroad. That terrible earthquake occurred after the Copenhagen Summit, where the most elemental rights of 192 UN member States were trampled upon.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, a competition has unleashed in Haiti to hastily and illegally adopt boys and girls. UNICEF has been forced to adopt preventive measures against the uprooting of many children, which will deprive their close relatives from their rights.

There are more than one hundred thousand deadly victims. A high number of citizens have lost their arms or legs, or have suffered fractures requiring rehabilitation that would enable them to work or manage their own.

Eighty per cent of the country needs to be rebuilt. Haiti requires an economy that is developed enough to meet its needs according to its productive capacity. The reconstruction of Europe or Japan, which was based on the productive capacity and the technical level of the population, was a relatively simple task as compared to the effort that needs to be made in Haiti. There, as well as in most of Africa and elsewhere in the Third World, it is indispensable to create the conditions for a sustainable development. In only forty years time, humanity will be made of more than nine billion inhabitants, and right now is faced with the challenge of a climate change that scientists accept as an inescapable reality.

In the midst of the Haitian tragedy, without anybody knowing how and why, thousands of US marines, 82^nd Airborne Division troops and other military forces have occupied Haiti. Worse still is the fact that neither the United Nations Organization nor the US government have offered an explanation to the world’s public opinion about this relocation of troops.

Several governments have complained that their aircraft have not been allowed to land in order to deliver the human and technical resources that have been sent to Haiti.

Some countries, for their part, have announced they would be sending an additional number of troops and military equipment. In my view, such events will complicate and create chaos in international cooperation, which is already in itself complex. It is necessary to seriously discuss this issue. The UN should be entrusted with the leading role it deserves in these so delicate matters.

Our country is accomplishing a strictly humanitarian mission. To the extent of its possibilities, it will contribute the human and material resources at its disposal. The will of our people, who takes pride in its medical doctors and cooperation workers who provide vital services, is huge, and will rise to the occasion.

Any significant cooperation that is offered to our country will not be rejected, but its acceptance will fully depend on the importance and transcendence of the assistance that is requested from the human resources of our homeland.

It is only fair to state that, up until this moment, our modest aircrafts and the important human resources that Cuba has made available to the Haitian people have arrived at their destination without any difficulty whatsoever.

We send doctors, not soldiers!

Fidel Castro Ruz

January 23, 2010

Uighur resentment at Beijing's rule

By Michael Dillon
Historian on Islam in China

The violence in Xinjiang has not occurred completely out of the blue.

Its root cause is ethnic tension between the Turkic Muslim Uighurs and the Han Chinese. It can be traced back for decades, and even to the conquest of what is now called Xinjiang by the Manchu Qing dynasty in the 18th Century.

In the 1940s there was an independent Eastern Turkestan Republic in part of Xinjiang, and many Uighurs feel that this is their birthright.

Instead, they became part of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and Xinjiang was declared one of China's autonomous regions, in deference to the fact that the majority of the population at the time was Uighur.

This autonomy is not genuine, and - although Xinjiang today has a Uighur governor - the person who wields real power is the regional secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party, Wang Lequan, who is a Han Chinese.

Inward migration

Under the rule of the Communist Party, there has been considerable economic development, but life has been made more difficult for the Uighurs over the past 20-30 years by the migration of many young and technically-qualified Han Chinese from the eastern provinces.

These new migrants are far more proficient in the Chinese language than all but a few Uighurs, and tend to be appointed to the best jobs.

Not surprisingly, this has created deep-seated resentment among the Uighurs, who view the migration of Han into Xinjiang as a plot by the government to dilute them, undermine their culture and prevent any serious resistance to Beijing's control.

More recently, young Uighurs have been encouraged to leave Xinjiang to find work in the rest of China, a process that had already been under way informally for some years.

There was particular concern at government pressure to encourage young Uighur women to move to other parts of China in search of employment - stoking fears they might end up working in bars or nightclubs or even in prostitution, without the protection of family or community.

Islam is an integral part of the life and the identity of the Uighurs of Xinjiang, and one of their major grievances against the Chinese government is the level of restriction imposed on their religious practices.

There are far fewer mosques in Xinjiang than there were before 1949, and they are subject to severe restrictions.

Children under the age of 18 are not permitted to worship in the mosques, and neither are officials of the Communist Party or the government.

Madrasas - religious schools - are also strictly controlled.

UIGHURS AND XINJIANG

Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims

They make up about 45% of the region's population. 40% are Han Chinese

China re-established control in 1949 after crushing short-lived state of East Turkestan

Since then, large-scale immigration of Han Chinese

Uighurs fear erosion of traditional culture

Sporadic violence since 1991

Attack on 4 Aug 2008 near Kashgar kills 16 Chinese policemen

Other Islamic institutions that were once a central part of religious life in Xinjiang have been banned, including many of the Sufi brotherhoods, which are based at the tombs of their founders and provided many welfare and other services to their members.

All religions in China are subject to control by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, but the restrictions on Islam among the Uighurs are far harsher than against most other groups, including the Hui who are also Muslims but are Chinese speakers.

This severity is a result of the association between Muslim groups and the independence movement in Xinjiang, a movement that is absolute anathema to Beijing.

There are groups within Xinjiang that support the idea of independence, but they are not allowed to do so openly because "splitting the motherland" is viewed as treason.

During the 1990s - after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent Muslim states in Central Asia - there was an upsurge in open support for these "separatist" groups, culminating in huge demonstrations in the city of Ghulja in 1995 and 1997.

Beijing suppressed those demonstrations with considerable force, and activists were either forced out of Xinjiang into Central Asia and as far away as Pakistan or were obliged to go underground.

'Climate of fear'

Severe repression since the launch of a "Strike Hard" campaign in 1996 has included harsher controls on religious activity, restrictions on movement, the denial of passports and the detention of individuals suspected of support for separatists and members of their families.

This has created a climate of fear and a great deal of resentment towards the authorities and the Han Chinese.

It is surprising that this resentment has not erupted into public anger and demonstrations before now, but that is a measure of the tightness of control that Beijing has been able to exercise over Xinjiang.

There are a number of emigre Uighur organisations in Europe and the United States; in most cases they advocate genuine autonomy for the region.

In the past, Beijing has also blamed an Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement for causing unrest, although there is no evidence that this ever existed in Xinjiang.

The authorities in Beijing are unable to accept that their own policies in Xinjiang might be the cause of the conflict, and seek to blame outsiders for inciting the violence - as they do in the case of the Dalai Lama and Tibet.

Even if Uighur emigre organisations wished to provoke unrest, it would be difficult for them to do so and there are, in any case, sufficient local reasons for unrest without the need for external intervention.

Michael Dillon is the former director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Durham. He is also the author of a book entitled Xinjiang: China's Muslim Far Northwest.

Cuba: The Look From The Revolution

40th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution By Jorge Martin Friday, 15 January 1999 Forty years ago, on January 1st 1959 a general strike paralysed Cuba and forced dictator Batista to flee the country. In a few days the July 26 Movement guerrillas, led by Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara entered the capital Havana and were received as heroes by the masses. The Cuban revolution had succeeded. What was the programme of that movement? What was the social basis of that revolution? In order to understand these and other questions we must look back a few years. In 1898, Spain lost Cuba, one of the few remnants of her former colonial power. But that did not mean independence for Cuba. The island was just transferred from one colonial master to another: the United States of America. For three years after 1898, Cuba was militarily occupied and ruled by the US and the Cuban Republic was only declared on 1902, after Washington passed the Platt amendment declaring the right of the US to militarily intervene in the island at any time. Cuban politics for the next 60 years were to be determined by the US who did actually send troops to the island on several occasions (1906, 1912, 1917, 1920 and 1933). The Cuban economy was also largely dominated by the US. The island's main source of income was sugar cane which was sold at preferential prices to the powerful northern neighbour. Most of the country's sugar mills were in the hands of American companies and so were most of the other key sectors of the economy (oil, electricity, telephone etc). The crushing domination of the US relied on a system of land property which remained basically the same as under Spanish domination: a few landowners had most of the land, while the majority of peasants were landless labourers. Fewer than 0.1% of the farms represented 20% of the land while at the other end of the scale 39% of the farms represented only 3.3% of the land. The only other group to benefit from this situation was the small and very weak Cuban bourgeoisie, confined to manufacturing the very few things not made by US subsidiaries. Meanwhile the living conditions of the Cuban masses were appalling. In good years 25% of the workforce was unemployed and the percentage went up to 50% in bad years. Illiteracy was very high and the average per capita income was only US$312 (compared to US$2,279 in Delaware). For years the Cuban workers played a key role in the struggle against imperialism and to advance their own interests. A high point was the huge wave of strikes and demonstrations, including armed uprisings and the establishment of revolutionary councils in the sugar mills, in the 1930s. This led to the overthrow of General Machado's US puppet government, which was soon replaced by an army coup led by Fulgencio Batista. Stalinist theory Unfortunately, the Cuban Communist Party, instead of relying on the revolutionary might of the Cuban workers adopted the Stalinist theory of the "two-stages". According to this, they were supposed to look for an alliance with the so-called "progressive national bourgeoisie" in order to complete the "anti-imperialist and democratic revolution" and only after that would the struggle for socialism be on the agenda. This theory was utterly divorced from Cuban conditions, and indeed from the real class relationships in any of the colonial countries. The Cuban landowners and the tiny bourgeoisie were completely linked to and dominated by the US. They had no intention whatsoever of carrying through the tasks of the bourgeois revolution (distribution of the land, fight for national independence) because that would have meant dealing a mortal blow to themselves. The Cuban Communist Party in its search for a non-existent 'progressive national bourgeoisie' discovered Batista to be the representative of this class and decided to support him. In exchange, the CP was legalised during the Batista dictatorship and even got two cabinet ministers in 1942. Batista was replaced by the corrupt civilian government of Grau San Mart�n which in its turn was overthrown by Batista in a second military coup in 1952. The succession of corrupt governments and military coups with the real power in the island remaining firmly in the hand of the US and their local crooks created widespread discontent amongst the population, including the petty-bourgeois layers. Thousands of small businessmen made bankrupt by the big monopolies, students who resented the domination of their country by a foreign power, and small landowners paralysed by the US-backed big landlords entered into opposition. In 1953, a group of students and intellectuals decided to do something to put an end to this state of affairs and with a handful of followers launched an assault on the Montcada barracks on July 26th. Amongst them were Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. They were defeated and jailed but as soon as they were released they went to Mexico where they set themselves the task of organising a guerrilla group, the July 26th Movement, which landed in Cuba in 1956. The programme of this movement was that of the revolutionary petty-bourgeoisie: distribution of land plots of more than 1,100 acres with compensation for the owners, a profit-sharing scheme for the workers aimed at expanding the domestic market, and the end of the quota system under which the US controlled sugar cane production. The 1956 Programme Manifesto of the 26-J Movement defined itself as "guided by the ideals of democracy, nationalism and social justice ... of Jeffersonian democracy". The same document also stated the aim to reach a "state of solidarity and harmony between capital and workers in order to raise the country's productivity". They launched a heroic 3 year long guerrilla struggle which won the overwhelming support of the Cuban people, with only the exception of the tiny handful of people directly linked to the landlords and US imperialism. The main base of the movement during the fighting itself were the landless peasants and small producers in the countryside, for whom the only way of solving their problems was the expropriation of the landlords. Batista's army, made up itself mainly of peasants rapidly began to disintegrate during the fighting. On January 1959 a general strike was declared which forced Batista to flee the country. Fidel Castro's guerrillas entered Santiago de Cuba and in a few days Havana and proclaimed a new government. Just after seizing power Castro went to the US in a goodwill tour declaring in New York "I have clearly and definitely stated that we are not Communists... The gates are open for private investment that contributes to the development of Cuba". The problem was that even this limited programme of progressive reforms clashed head on with the interests of the big landlords and the US multinationals. In other words, to carry through the programme of the democratic bourgeois revolution in a backward country in the epoch of imperialism meant to challenge capitalism and imperialism itself. This had already been proved by the practical experience of the Russian Revolution in 1917. The Bolsheviks had argued that the national democratic revolution could only be led in a backward country like Russia by the working class (which represented no more than 10% of the population at that time). Socialist revolution The workers, having taken power at the head of the other oppressed classes, especially the peasantry, would then proceed to carry through the tasks of the socialist revolution as the only way to ensure the survival of the revolution. But, as the national democratic revolution also challenged the interests of imperialism, in order to survive, the revolution had to spread internationally seeking the help of the mighty working class in the advanced capitalist countries. Trotsky was the first one to give a full theoretical explanation of this theory which is known as the permanent revolution. The revolution in a backward country therefore, has to be 'permanent' in two regards: because it starts with the national democratic tasks and continues with the socialist ones, and because it starts in one country but has to spread internationally in order to succeed. The events which followed Castro's seizure of power in Cuba are a remarkable confirmation of this theory, which is even more striking because of the fact that Castro was forced to act in the opposite way to what he intended. As soon as the new government started to seize the land owned by the big landlords (some of them US companies) they tried to organise resistance against these measures and were backed by the US. The masses, aroused by the revolutionary takeover were also putting enormous pressure on the government with a wave of land seizures and factory occupations and strikes. The conflict came to a head in 1960 when the three oil companies in the island (all of them US-owned) refused to refine a delivery of Russian oil to Cuba. The Cuban government then "intervened" placing them under government supervision. The US retaliated by cutting the quota for Cuban sugar, but Russia offered to buy it. Then the Cuban government decided to nationalise the electricity company, the telephone company, the oil refinery and the sugar mills. Afterwards all Cuban subsidiaries of US companies were also nationalised and finally the biggest Cuban companies were taken into public ownership. The US government retaliated by putting in place a trade embargo (which is still in place) and preparing military intervention to overthrow the regime. In 1961 all diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken. As we have seen Castro and his comrades had no intention whatsoever of eliminating capitalism and landlordism in the island. They were pushed to do so by a combination of the mistakes and blunders of the US and the pressure of the Cuban masses. But the key factor was that no fundamental change could ever be implemented in Cuba under capitalism. In the epoch of imperialism there is no room for a small colonial country to achieve real independence and advance unless it breaks fundamentally with capitalism. And this, Castro and his comrades of the 26-J Movement found out by their own experience. Overthrow The Cuban Communist Party played almost no role in the overthrow of Batista because its political activity was firmly rooted in the anti-Bolshevik theory of the two stages. They even denounced Castro as a "gangster"! Undoubtedly, the support for the new regime was overwhelming. Two hundred thousand workers and soldiers were organised in a popular militia and Committees for the Defence of the Revolution organised in every neighbourhood and every village. Thus when the CIA sponsored an invasion of the island in April 1961, the Cuban emigre invasion force was rapidly crushed. For the first time in their lives, workers and peasants had something to defend, something to fight and even die for. The revolution enjoyed mass support since its advantages were there for everyone to see: an enormous advance of the living standards, the eradication of illiteracy, one of the best health systems in the world, etc. But without workers control and management of the state and the economy there can be no socialism and the development of bureaucracy and mismanagement is inevitable. This is on of the most important lessons to be drawn from the collapse of the Soviet Union. The way the new regime had come to power was to shape the organisation of the new state. The working class is the only class that, because of its working conditions and the role it plays in production, is able to adopt a collectivist viewpoint. During the process of the Russian revolution hundreds of thousands of workers, peasants and soldiers went through the school of the soviets, revolutionary committees where all decisions were taken democratically, and gained confidence in their own ability to run their own lives. But the Cuban revolution was led by a handful of intellectuals and in the process of the fighting itself no more than a few hundred participated. The masses played mainly a secondary role. And this situation was to remain afterwards. There was a workers and peasants' militia and revolutionary committees, but their role was not to rule but only to approve decisions taken elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands gathered to listen to the speeches of the leaders, but they were not allowed to take decisions. When the new regime broke with capitalism the model it based itself on was not that of Russian soviet democracy of 1917, but that of Russia 1961 when all vestiges of workers control had been eradicated long ago. An example of this can be seen in the fact that the Communist Party was created in 1965, its first congress did not take place until 1975, ten years later! Scarcity The lack of democracy and the scarcity of basic products (largely due to the criminal embargo decreed by US imperialism) has meant an increase in scepticism amongst the younger generation. The older generation remains largely loyal to the regime because they know how life was under the domination of the landlords and imperialism and if they look around to the neighbouring states they see a cruel reminder of what life would be like if capitalism were restored. Socialists all over the world have the duty to defend the Cuban revolution against the attempts of US imperialism to destroy it, but also against the attempts of European capitalism to restore the rule of capital bit by bit. At the same time we have to explain that genuine socialism cannot be established unless there is real workers democracy and above all that socialism cannot be built in a single island. The best contribution we can make to defend the gains of the Cuban revolution is to fight for socialism in our own countries.