Republican News · Thursday 28 March 2002

Daughter of the Cuban Revolution

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There are many ways of fighting a revolution. Aleida Guevara's father, Ernesto Ché Guevara, fought it first as a field doctor, then as a freedom fighter. Aleida's way is as a First Degree Consultant on Pediatric Allergology at "William Soler" Paediatric Hospital in Havana. Her revolutionary fight is to save lives against the backdrop of the lack of medicines and medical equipment caused by US sanctions against Cuba.

Aleida began her medical studies in 1978. In 1983 she started her specialty studies in Nicaragua as an internationalist doctor. She traveled to the People's Republic of Angola as an internationalist pediatric doctor in 1986.

Aleida participates in international solidarity events as much as her family and medical commitments allow. She is also involved in a project devoted to researching and documenting her fathers' life and writings at the Ché Guevara Centre in Havana. An Phoblacht's SOLEDAD GALIANA spoke to Aleida on her recent visit to Ireland.

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How does it feel to be the daughter of Ché Guevara and being known mainly because of that?

Well, it is something that happens to everyone. Many people know about my father, but it is the same that can happen to anyone whose father or mother is loved, admired and respected. For some people, who did not get to know my father, to know his daughter is like touching a piece of him.

My mother is a very centred woman and she taught us that these things had to be taken in their real measure, and that is love for a very special human being, but nothing else. But we, his sons and daughters, have to show our own value.

 

You are a doctor as your father was. To what degree was your decision influenced by your father's example?

I started talking about becoming a doctor when I was four and a half years old. So, yes, my dad's example played its role. My father was the centre around which my life gravitated. But after a while, I realised that being the daughter of Ché mean that I had being privileged with the love of my people. Love can only be repaid with love, so you have to try and give back everything you have to repay what you are getting for free, without any effort on your part. I felt that becoming a doctor I would be able to get very close to the human being's happiness and sadness and I just like this profession. It is very human, very important and sweet. In some way, I feel I have being able to do something for my people and I feel fulfilled as a human being.

 

d Cuba's health system is one of the most admired around the world.

Yes, but still there is room for improvement. It is important to realise that we have being suffering the US blockage for the last 40 years. Our life is not easy. We had to look for alternatives, like traditional medicine. We have learned from Asian and African traditional medicines. There is a need to look for solutions to the blockade problem.

The main characteristic of Cuban medicine is its humanity - the emphasis on contact with the human being. This is the secret to the efficiency of the health system. In Cuba there is a lack of some products and there are many economic problems that make it very difficult for us to get the best technology. From that point of view, we had to put a lot of effort into keeping everything afloat and I believe we have shown our strength when confronting all these difficulties.

I have always said that Cuban medicine has a special quality in trying to prevent diseases. It is a lot easier and cheaper to prevent illnesses. Cuba's infant mortality is one of the lowest of the world right now. And this is due to the work of the GP, which is very important in the public health system in Cuba. We always say we work with Damocles' Sword hanging over our head. The life of a child is sacred in Cuba.

Up to 200 people braved the elements on St Patrick's day to Aleida Guevara is pictured with Clonakilty Sinn Féin Councillor Cionnaith Ó Súilleabháin, one of the party's general election candidates in Cork South West, after she spoke to over 500 people at a public meeting at Jury's Hotel, Cork.

Could you explain the specific problems caused by the US blockade on Cuba's Health System?

Imagine we need to buy some medicine. Living in Europe, you know that medicines are usually quite expensive. Because of the Helms-Burton legislation, US companies cannot sell medicines to Cuba, so we have to buy medicines through sometimes five middlemen, which means that the price increases a lot. And this is a medicine that has to be subsidised by the government.

This applies to all drugs, so you can imagine how difficult it is to keep the flow of medicines coming into the country, and also to buy the amounts we need in Cuba. That is the reason why the solidarity groups in Europe are so important, like MediCuba, which through solidarity makes it possible to buy basic drugs for Cuba, where we put together our own medicines. Solidarity projects like this have been working in Europe for the last eight years, and they do beat the blockade, but also it allows Cuba, a so-called third-world country, not only to survive but also to flourish.

In Cuban hospitals you can find machines of the latest technology in places like the children's hospital where I work, but I can't tell you who we bought it from, because it could compromise those who made, bought, transported, etc, the product.

 

What is like living under the blockade?

This blockage is hitting us hard. Blockade is a five-month-old child in need of a medicine that has a US patent that is impossible to get and the child is bleeding to death. Can anybody tell me this child's ideology, which party she belongs to, what she has done to deserve such a punishment? The only reason is that she was born in Cuba.

 

Cuban doctors are known for their solidarity work in other countries, but now they are educating the doctors of other poor countries.

Latin America still needs doctors and we cannot supply doctors to all these countries, so we felt that it was necessary to establish a school where all the students that cannot afford studies in their country of origin could go to study free of charge. But the US receives our solidarity as well, because we should not forget that there is a section of the so called third world that nobody knows, within the US, the greatest economic, military and political power. There is a black and Latino population that lives in worse conditions than many in the third world. And these people have also been offered the opportunity to study medicine in Cuba for free.

This free education is something that looks like an easy thing to do, but we have to take into consideration the burden that is to educate and feed more than 2,000 students from all over America per year, over six years. So there is a condition for them to avail to this free education, and this is their commitment to their people, because they have to go back to their countries and pay back the efforts of the Cuban people by working in their countries, in their neighbourhoods. That is all we ask for.

It is true that many doctors are leaving Cuba and not returning?

Cuba has a rate of one doctor per 188 residents. In a society of 11 million people, not everybody is going to think the same way. In a socialist society like Cuba, we try to educate the people with certain values, like solidarity, companionship, to forget about "me" to make a stronger "us". And this is very nice and easy thing to say but not everybody assimilates it. You have to realise that Cubans live 180 km from the US. We are the only country with the "privilege" of having a US TV station broadcasting in perfect Spanish only for us, and apart from that we have five US Spanish language radio stations.

Their constant message is that socialism is a bad thing, that you do not have the right to live in peace, that you will not have a chance to do anything worthy in the future, that you do not have possibilities to develop yourself intellectually. And sadly, there are people in Cuba who pay some attention to it; and what is worse, some Cubans like the way of living that consists of ignoring the concept of "us" as a community and just caring about their own pockets.

I have to admit that that the doctors in Cuba are not rich, and they will never be rich, because they cannot exploit other human beings. The first thing that you learn is that medicine is a duty and a right for the population and it has no price. Who can pay me for the lives of the children that I have tried to save with my own hands? And this is the way we are taught, but it is up to each individual to put it into practice.

So, some people leave, and for us, in Cuba, it is a difficult situation, because the Cuban people give you the support so you can study without paying for it and then people leave the country. This is not only very painful, but is very difficult to understand for those farmers who work so hard cutting sugarcane by hand to produce enough revenue so the government can afford free education for everyone.

 

Do you think that there is any chance that US policy against Cuba may change in the near future?

We live under pressure, and every time the Cuban economy improves, the US comes up with a new law against Cuba. And the reason is because the Cuban example could be a very dangerous for countries in the third world. Can you imagine all the countries in the third world claiming their rights in the same way that Cuba does nowadays? Imagine all those countries that are exploited, discriminated against and badly treated by this wrongly named first world, which buys the raw materials and then sells the by-products of these same materials at astronomical prices to the producer countries.

What are the tyres made of? Rubber; and the biggest producer of rubber in the world is Brazil. Where do we get the copper? Chile. Where can we find oil? In third world countries. Imagine if all these people decided to claim their rights so they could own their own resources for the first time in history and prevent the profits from leaving the countries in the hands of multinational corporations. What would happen to the first world? Things will get tight for all these people that are used to wasting, spending and at the same time destroying the environment.

So the Cuban example can't be good for the first world, and they have to find a way to damage the Cuban revolution. A very important way of doing it is using propaganda. How many Irish leave the country every year? How many have emigrated in the history of this country? Thousands. But if a single Cuban leaves, it will make worldwide headlines. Why? Because the poor thing is escaping from socialism. Can they just not see that this person can be in a difficult economic situation and thinks that his conditions can improve somewhere else? Cannot this person be a typical economic migrant?

 

What does Cuba stand for?

If you check the history of humanity, if you put aside the first humans, what you have is: Slavery, those with money are worth something, the others are slaves. Feudalism, those with money have land and property, the others are servants. Capitalism, the ones who call the shots are those with the money, and they are going to keep ordering the rest around as long as they can. And who breaks his/her back working? The worker.

In socialist doctrine they tell you that the most important thing is not the money that you have in your pocket but human values, the things you are capable of doing for others. All that sounds very nice, but it is also a daily learning process, and it has to be done. And we are totally surrounded by people aiming at us, constantly saying that we are being lied to, that we should look at them, living in paradise, where there are no problems and everything is wonderful. They never mention the infant mortality rate in the US, how men and women die every day because they do not have the money to pay for health services. That is not the type of propaganda that capitalist societies embark on. And there are people who believe the fairy tale and nothing else.