castroscholarship.html

Africana.com

March 1, 2001

Havana Healing:
Castro's Minority Scholarship Plan

By Hisham Aidi <ha26@columbia.edu>

         When Cuban leader Fidel Castro visited Harlem last fall and
         delivered a six-hour speech at Riverside Church, he spoke
         out against globalization and denounced "the existing
         economic and social order of the world" and the "consumption
         patterns" of rich nations. The jefe maximo reprimanded the
         US for failing to take care of its poor and disadvantaged,
         and offered to provide six years of free medical education
         and training in Cuba for hundreds of low-income minority
         students in the US. The Congressional Black Caucus recently
         decided to take Castro up on his offer, and is putting
         together a board of admissions and developing a selection
         process.

         "This appears to be an excellent opportunity to improve
         health care in our Congressional districts, as well as a
         chance to fulfill a life's dream for students who couldn't
         otherwise afford it," said Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY). Rep.
         Jose Serrano (D-NY), who has been campaigning to end the
         41-year-old US blockade against Cuba, said that his district
         office in the Bronx has begun to contact high school
         counselors to identify potential student applicants.

         The program, which is still gestating, is to be administered
         by the Congressional Black Caucus. Recruits must be high
         school graduates under the age of 26 and can be of any
         minority background (not only African American); they will
         receive free medical education and training, plus free
         textbooks and room and board. Beneficiaries would have to
         return to their communities to practice medicine after being
         trained in Cuba. Some students could be registered in the
         program as early as this spring.

         While proponents say the program will be an excellent means
         of addressing the dearth of minority students in America's
         medical schools, critics see Castro's offer as another
         political ploy or propaganda measure at a time when US-Cuba
         relations are rather strained. The Castro regime recently
         accused the US of encouraging terrorism after Washington
         moved to compensate the families of three Cuban American
         anti-Castro activists whose plane was shot down by Cuba in
         1996, using $96 million from Cuban assets frozen in the US
         since 1959.

         Cuban National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon told the
         official Prensa Latina news agency that the move was an act
         of "aggression," and that Washington has no right to
         disburse the assets. "The US government is stimulating with
         authorization, further terrorist acts and provocations,"
         which eradicated any chance of a bilateral dialogue, Alarcon
         charged. In response, Cuba has cut off direct telephone
         links with the US, and, in a rather absurd turn of events,
         the Cuban National Association of Afghan Hounds expelled
         Vicky Huddleston, an American dog-owner who resided in
         Havana. The dog club stated in a letter that Huddleston, who
         allegedly insulted the communist nation, was asked to leave
         "out of a sense of patriotism and support for our people,"
         but her dog was allowed to stay: "In no way was this
         decision aimed at her dog, Hassan Havana Huddleston, who is
         still welcome in our association, as is her co-owner, Ana
         Maria Gonzalez Macuran."

         Despite all this, Castro has made overtures to the West, and
         recently hosted US financier David Rockefeller and a
         delegation of investment bankers. Some are skeptical of
         these overtures, including Castro's offer to train minority
         medical students. A spokesperson for US Rep. Lincoln
         Diaz-Baralt (R-FL) called the offer a "propaganda ploy" from
         a nation that is hoping to have the embargo lifted.

         Fernando Garcia Bielsa, a spokesman for the Cuban Interests
         Section in Washington, said the offer was "a goodwill
         gesture" from a country that has too many doctors and
         regularly sends medical assistance to impoverished areas of
         the world. "Ours is a poor country without a lot of
         resources, but this is one way we can help other people," he
         said.

         "Offering free education to poor black students in
         Mississippi and other poor areas is a brilliant idea by the
         leader of the revolution, Dr. Fidel Castro," said Eugene
         Godfried, a journalist and Radio Havana host who has lived
         in Cuba for nearly 30 years and is now a visiting Fellow in
         the Africana Studies Department at the University of
         Massachusetts. "Dr. Castro is a visionary. He has always
         been close to the struggles for the liberation of people of
         African descent and other poor, exploited nationalities in
         the US. Fidel has learned about the struggle of brothers and
         sisters here through the Black Caucus -- and is now giving
         them a helping hand. Cuba has been giving aid to Africa --
         in Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau -- and has exchange
         programs for African students. The US is not an exception.
         The position of the revolution is that international
         solidarity must include the US. The capitalist system here
         has created an internal colonialism, a marginalization of
         the youth, and sheer exploitation of the masses. Fidel has
         taken a visionary position. He is an internationalist. Had
         he not helped Africa, the face of South Africa would be
         different. Mandela could still be in the dungeons. The
         medical students will come to defend life in the US. It's to
         be applauded."

         Representatives of the American Medical Association have
         voiced concern about the quality of education and training
         American students would receive in Cuba, noting that they
         might have a difficult time getting licensed upon returning
         to the US. According to a report by the National Board of
         Examiners, only 48 percent of the graduates of foreign
         medical schools passed the final stage of their US licensing
         examinations in 1999, compared to 92 percent of those who
         graduated from schools in the United States or Canada.

         Supporters of Castro's scholarship plan say that Cuba's
         medical instruction programs are world-class. "Cuba produces
         very good doctors. They historically have a great
         reputation," said Tinoa Rodgers, Media Director for
         Riverside Church, where Castro first made his offer last
         fall. "Cuban doctors may not have the best technology, but
         they have very good bedside manner, good relationship with
         patients. They're trained as physicians whose missions is to
         heal, [they're] trained to do the most with the least, given
         their lack of resources."

         "13,500 of Cuba's 64,000 doctors are black," notes Lisa
         Brock, co-editor of Race and Empire: African Americans and
         Cubans Before the Cuban Revolution (1997). "We in the US
         only have 17,000 black doctors. Thus Cuba, with a population
         of 11 million, has nearly 13,500 black doctors, while we
         here with a population of 290 million have only [a few]
         thousand more."

         According to the New York Times, after four decades of
         Castro's revolution and despite the loss of a $5-8 billion
         subsidy from the former Soviet Union, Cuba still has free
         education and health care, the highest literacy rate and
         lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America. The average
         life expectancy is now 75, up from 60 in 1959. The number of
         university graduates has quadrupled under Castro, and Cuban
         doctors are pioneers in new research in biotechnology and
         vaccines.

         African American interest and cultural exchange with Cuba
         goes back to at least the late 19th century when Frederick
         Douglass and fellow abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet
         actively supported Cuba's struggle to overthrow Spanish
         colonial rule. In 1881, a full-page picture and story on
         Frederick Douglass appeared on the front page of La
         Fraternidad, Cuba's leading black revolutionary newspaper.
         Many African Americans have also felt a special bond with
         Cuba's post-revolutionary government, which many feel
         improved the lot of black Cubans.

         "African Americans have a promise of home in Cuba that they
         never dreamed of -- a country that recognizes the blood and
         sweat of the black folks that built it," said novelist
         Walter Mosley in a report on Cuba released by TransAfrica in
         1999. "Cuba at least accepts that there is history beyond
         Europe; that Africa has also been a partner in raising the
         New World."

         "A black man in Harlem has a shorter life span than a man in
         Bangladesh. Cubans have a much higher life span," said
         Elombe Brath, a political activist who met Castro during his
         visit to Harlem last year. "What Cuba has achieved in the
         field of medicine is unbelievable. In forty-two years, the
         Cubans have shown that even with [pressure from] the
         colossus -- with what Jose Marti called the 'monster from
         the north' -- they were able to create excellent healthcare
         services. Cuba has sent more medical workers to Africa than
         world health organizations. They will train people from
         around the world in Cuba and then send them back home --
         they don't take part in the 'brain drain.'.Fidel shows us
         how a representative of humankind is supposed to be. Cuba's
         the only country out there standing for our liberation. When
         Castro came to power, he told his people that the blood of
         Africa flows through the veins of every Cuban and every
         Cuban is at least a mulatto. 'If we study history,' he said,
         'we'll find that Spain was conquered by the Moors. So we
         have an interest in Africa and African liberation.'"

For more information about Cuban medical scholarships,
contact the Congressional Black Caucus.