A decision by the new U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to restrict U.S. visas of government officials whose countries employ Cuban health-care workers is being condemned by heads of governments throughout the Caribbean.
CARICOM leaders have agreed to adopt a measured, strategic, and proactive approach in engaging relevant stakeholders from the United States, as well as Cuba. They are formulating a balanced Community response in view of the potential unintended consequences and Regional impacts.
Rubio claims that Cuba is profiting from the forced labour of its workers and the regime’s abusive and coercive labour practices has been well documented.
On 15th February, he announced the expansion of an existing Cuba-related visa restriction policy that targets forced labour linked to the Cuban labour export programme.
“This policy applies to current or former Cuban government officials, and other individuals, including foreign government officials, who are believed to be responsible for, or involved in, the Cuban labour export programme, particularly Cuba’s overseas medical missions.”
This week Prime Minister Philip Davis said, “The Bahamas is not engaged in any forced labour practices.”
Addressing The Bahamas Economic Outlook Conference at The Baha Mar Resort, Mr. Davis said: “while The Bahamas is a small nation, size does not define influence. We will not allow our voices to be dulled. Our national interests are not served by silence. They are served by engagement.
“But let me be equally clear: engagement does not mean compromise. We will not abandon our national priorities to fit neatly within the designs of others.
“We will not be pressured into choices that do not serve the best interest of our people. Within our strategic development framework, we must ensure that our solutions, even when reliant on international support and partnerships, always prioritize the well-being of our people first.”
The Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley said, “this matter with the Cuban workers and nurses should tell us all we need to know. Barbados does not currently have Cuban medical staff or Cuban nurses; but I will be the first to go to the line and tell you that we could not get through the pandemic without the Cuban nurses and Cuban doctors.
“I will also be the first to tell you that we paid them the same thing that we paid Bajans and that the notion as was peddled not just by this government in the U.S., but the previous government, that we were involved in human trafficking by engaging with the Cuban nurses was fully repudiated and rejected by us.
“Now I don’t believe that we have to shout across the seas, but I am prepared like others in this region, that if we cannot reach a sensible agreement on this matter, then if the cost of it is the loss of my visa to the U.S, then so be it. But what matters to us is principles. And I have said over and over that principles only mean something when it is inconvenient to stand by it. Now we don’t have to shout, but we can be resolute. I therefore look forward to standing with my CARICOM brothers to be able to explain that what the Cubans have been able to do for us, far from approximating itself to human trafficking, has been to save lives and limbs and sight for many a Caribbean person,” said Mottley.
Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines told an audience in his country: “If it is determined that you have to take away my visa, I want to say that I am not looking for a fight with anybody, but we have to be open. The hemodialysis which we do in Saint Vincent at the Modern Medical and Diagnostic Centre with these 60 persons, without the Cubans there, I will not be able to offer that service.
“So, does anybody expect that because I want to keep a visa, that I would let 60 persons from the poor and working people die? That would never happen,” said Gonsalves. Speaking at a ceremony marking the opening of the central block of the Port of Spain General Hospital in Trinidad, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley said his country relied on specialists for its health-care delivery which over the years have come from India, the Philippines, Africa and mainly from Cuba.
“Out of the blue now, we have been called human traffickers because we hire technical people who we pay top dollar, equal to local rates. We are now being accused of taking part in a programme where people are being exploited. That’s somebody’s interpretation. Of course, there are local people here encouraging them to take away our U.S. visas. “I just came back from California, and if I never go back there again in my life, I will ensure that the sovereignty of Trinidad and Tobago is known to its people and respected by all,” said Dr. Rowley.
