Showing posts with label medical students. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medical students. Show all posts

Friday, April 12, 2019

Update on Congolese Medical Students in Cuba: Following attack by police they publish letter apologizing

Do you have to still apologize when they defame you, beat you, set dogs loose to attack you, and point guns at you?
These are who the Cuban official press describes as having "staged a violent riot."

On Monday a large number of secret police gathered to violently put down a student protest at the Salvador Allende School of Medical Sciences in Havana, Cuba. There had been rising tensions among Congolese medical students who had been kept in poor conditions, and not been provided with their scholarship funds for over two years.  Images of the students being attacked with clubs and dogs by Cuban police appeared in news coverage.



Today, in Prensa Latina, the Castro dictatorship's official press, responded with an Orwellian report with the headline "Congolese Medicine Students Apologize to Cuba."  The report claims that the students released a statement in an online letter claiming that their words were being taken out of context to defame "the Cuban people." However that same Prensa Latina article defames the students when the official press writes:
"The future doctors started a protest several days ago to demand from the Government of the Republic of Congo the payment of 27 months late in the stipend, and staged a violent riot on Monday, which forced the Cuban law enforcement authorities to act."
Videos of what transpired showed a peaceful assembly that turned into chaos when the police began attacking the medical students, beating them with sticks, setting dogs loose on them, and pointing a gun at one student who had his hands up.

Could it be that what we are witnessing in action is an aphorism stated in 1980 by the late Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas: “The difference between the communist and capitalist systems is that, although both give you a kick in the ass, in the communist system you have to applaud, while in the capitalist system you can scream.”

Police crackdown on students who peacefully assembled and call it a riot.



Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Foreign Medical students beaten down in Cuba for protesting poor conditions

Congolese beaten down by secret police in Cuba for protesting conditions

Anti-riot shock troops chase down students. Medical student faces down armed police
On Monday a large number of secret police gathered to violently put down a student protest at the School of Medical Sciences Salvador Allende of Havana. There had been rising tensions among Congolese medical students who had been kept in poor conditions, and not been provided with their scholarship funds for over two years. Images of troops in riot gear, with dogs, and an armed police man pointing his firearm at medical student were captured and shared over social media. 

According to 14yMedio Congolese medical students held a meeting on April 1, 2019 with representatives of the Embassy of Congo and Higher Education and the Ministry of Health of Cuba that ended without an agreement between the parties, which generated a greater discontent among the students.

The Congolese students began a strike of non-attendance to the classes in protest, to which the authorities reacted with vigilance in the residences of the students. On Monday, the operation was moved to the Salvador Allende campus in the Altahabana district of Boyeros municipality.





"The police arrived and delivered many blows, at least five students were arrested and taken to the police headquarters in this area as well as a neighbor who was filming and a girl," said a witness who did not want to reveal his name. The medical students recorded images that they spread through social networks in which anti-riot police are seen running towards the protest area, previously cordoned off by a group of uniformed people. A police officer arrives to point a gun at two students. 

The protest organized by a group of medical students from the Republic of Congo on Monday was suppressed by a strong deployment of the National Revolutionary Police along with special troops and officers of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT). The Congolese students demanded the payment of their scholarships that have been delayed 27 months and better conditions in the university residences.

Some context: Kenyan doctor commits suicide in Cuba due to poor conditions

Health care professionals in Cuba have endured terrible conditions. Conditions so extreme that they have requested to return home, and at least in once case may have led to a suicide.

On March 17, 2019 Kenyan doctor Dr Hamisi Ali Juma was reported dead. He was taking part in an exchange program between Cuba and Kenya. A team of experts left for Cuba on March 20, 2019 to investigate the circumstances under which the Kenyan doctor died.

Citizen Digital explained why the doctor may have committed suicide:

Dr. Hamisi Ali Juma committed suicide barely six months into the exchange programme.
He was one of the 50 Kenyan doctors in Cuba sponsored by the government to study Family Medicine as a specialization under the framework of the MOU between Kenya and Cuba.

Dr. Ali Juma's family said that he was constantly complaining of poor working conditions in Cuba and at one point Hamisi even lodged a formal request to return home but that was never to be. 40  of the 50 doctors in Cuba including the deceased signed a distress letter.  The letter was sent to the Parliamentary Committee on Health, pleading with the legislators to address what the doctors termed as “numerous challenges that have gone unanswered.”
It further explains that they were forced to board the plane to Cuba with threats of tough disciplinary actions should they fail to do so. In the letter, the doctors explain that they currently live under “humiliating and unbearable conditions,” sharing small rooms with no ventilation.

Congolese medical students are standing up for their rights in Cuba, and discovering that the police state in Cuba is as brutal or more brutal than what they have experienced back home.


Friday, July 12, 2013

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas on the heinous crime committed on July 13, 1994


A CRIME BEHIND THE BACK OF THE CHRIST OF HAVANA

Behind the Christ of Havana, about seven miles from the coast, "volunteers" of the Communist regime committed one of the most heinous crimes in the history of our city and of Cuba.

In the morning, a group of seventy people in all, fled on a tugboat, led by the ship's own crew; none was kidnapped, or there against their will. They came out of the mouth of the Bay of Havana.

They were pursued by other similar ships. When the runaway ship and its occupants stopped to surrender, the ships that had been chasing them started ramming to sink it. Meanwhile, on the deck, women with children in their arms begging for mercy, but the answer of their captors was to project high pressure water cannons against them. Some saw their children fall overboard under the murderous jets of water amid shrieks of horror. They behaved brutally until their perverse mission was fulfilled: Sink the fleeing ship and annihilate many of its occupants.

They murdered thirty two people, of them 20 children. Some would be turning 15 years old now. “Granma” the official organ of the Communist Party reported that the vessel sank because of a “rotating bell”. That continues to be the repeated official version, but the survivors tell of infernal scenes conceived and executed by diabolical minds.

They had many opportunities to not annihilate those twenty innocent children and additional women and men, but their malice was sustained. They lost the opportunity that God always gives his children not to fall into the abyss of evil, as fell those who ordered and carried out this crime.

Only the farce that ended with the murder by firing squad of eight innocent young Cuban medical students on the 27 of November of 1871 had the brutality, the arrogance, the cowardice and ruthless abuse that the crime of July 13, 1994 had.

Only the murder of 73 innocent people, many of them teenagers, Cuban athletes traveling in a Cubana airliner, exploded in midair the 6th of October of 1976 by a terrorist bomb, was full of so much sickening hatred, of so much perversion and of so much cynicism afterwards by their material and intellectual authors, as was the crime of July 13, 1994.

All of these behaviors: rage, arrogance, cowardice, ruthless abuse, sickening hatred, perversion and subsequent cynicism by the authors, overflow in the crime of the “13 de Marzo” tugboat, on the day of July 13, 1994. But impunity also overflows.

Impunity not only because the guilty have not been put on trial, but because many people in Cuba and in the world do not dare to denounce this crime and to even recognize it as such. The authors of this crime are treated as heroes by the Cuban government. The mourners were not even allowed to cry openly on our soil, not even complain, nor protest.

Before whom to make a claim? Before the tribunals that judge and unjustly condemn those who raise their voice to say the truth and those who march in silence to denounce these crimes? Too painful the events that I have mentioned, for which it is improper to use ironies. I seriously denounce that what is missing are 32 black flags that should be placed, from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, in a straight line to the Ministry of the Interior, but visible from the Ministry of Culture since its heralds of all species, Cubans and foreigners, are charged with singing to the lie and oppression, falsifying truth and freedom.

Let the silenced bells toll. But let them toll for all the victims of terror that in reality is only one sole victim: the Cuban people that without distinctions, suffers the loss of each one of their children.

The Christ of Havana is not turning his back on those who died; he is calling on those who are living so that they not live in the lie paralyzed by fear, but rather seek the truth with the hope that all of us Cubans can live free and as brothers. That way, one day soon, in that plaza and in all of Cuba, will be inundated with Cuban flags and white flags floating in the songs of all who will proclaim: at last peace and freedom!

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas
Havana, July 13, 2009


Original text in Spanish taken from the official page of the Christian Liberation Movement and is reproduced in its entirety below:

UN CRIMEN A ESPALDAS DEL CRISTO DE LA HABANA

A espaldas del Cristo de La Habana, a unas siete millas de la costa, “los voluntarios” del régimen comunista cometieron uno de los crímenes más horrendos en la historia de nuestra ciudad y de Cuba.
En la madrugada, un grupo de setenta  personas en total, huía en un remolcador, dirigidos por la propia tripulación de la nave. Ninguno iba secuestrado, ni en contra de su voluntad. Salieron por la boca de la  bahía de la Habana.

Le persiguieron otras naves semejantes. Al  detenerse la nave fugitiva y rendirse sus ocupantes, las naves que le perseguían comenzaron a embestirla hasta hundirla. Mientras tanto, en la cubierta, mujeres con niños en los brazos suplicaban piedad, pero la respuesta de sus captores fue proyectar contra ellos cañones de agua de gran potencia. Algunas vieron a sus hijos desprenderse bajo los chorros asesinos en medio de alaridos de horror. Se ensañaron hasta que cumplieron su misión perversa: Hundir la nave que huía y aniquilar a muchos sus ocupantes.

Asesinaron a treinta dos personas, de ellos veinte niños. Alguno estaría cumpliendo 15años ahora. El órgano oficial del Partido Comunista “Granma” informó que la nave se hundió por un giro de campana. Esa sigue siendo la versión oficial repetida, pero los sobrevivientes relatan las escenas infernales concebidas y ejecutadas por mentes diabólicas. Tuvieron  muchas oportunidades para no aniquilar a esos veinte niños inocentes y a mujeres y hombres, pero su maldad fue sostenida. Perdieron así la oportunidad que Dios siempre da para que sus hijos no caigan en el abismo del mal, como cayeron los que ordenaron y ejecutaron este crimen.

Únicamente la farsa que terminó con el asesinato por fusilamiento de ocho inocentes jóvenes cubanos estudiantes de medicina, el 27 de Noviembre de1871 tuvo la saña, la soberbia, la cobardía y el abuso despiadado, que tuvo el crimen del 13 de Julio de 1994.

Únicamente el asesinato de 73 personas inocentes, mucho de ellos adolescentes, atletas cubanos que viajaban en un avión de Cubana de Aviación,  explotado en pleno vuelo mediante bomba de terroristas, el 6 de octubre del1976, estuvo cargado de tanto odio enfermizo, de tanta perversión y de tanto cinismo posterior por sus autores materiales e intelectuales, como lo estuvo el crimen del 13 de Julio de 1994.

Todas estas conductas; saña, soberbia, cobardía, abuso despiadado, odio enfermizo, perversión y cinismo posterior de los autores, se desbordan en el crimen del Remolcador 13 de Marzo, del día 13 de Julio de 1994. Pero también se desborda la impunidad.

Impunidad no solamente porque los culpables no han sido juzgados, sino por que muchas personas en Cuba y en el mundo no se atreven a denunciar este crimen y ni siquiera a reconocerlo como tal.
Los autores de este crimen son tratados como héroes por el Gobierno cubano. Ni siquiera llorar abiertamente en nuestra tierra se permitió a los dolientes, ni siquiera quejarse, ni siquiera protestar.
¿Ante quien reclamar? ¿Ante los tribunales que juzgan y condenan injustamente a los que levantan la voz para decir la verdad y a los que desfilan en silencio para denunciar estos crímenes?

Demasiado dolorosos los eventos que aquí he mencionado, por lo que es impropio usar ironías. Denuncio seriamente que faltan 32 banderas negras que deben colocarse, desde al Comité Central del Partido Comunista, en línea directa, hasta el Ministerio del Interior, pero visible desde el Ministerio de Cultura ya que sus heraldos de todas las especies, cubanos y extranjeros, son los encargados de cantarle a la mentira y la opresión, falsificando la verdad y la libertad.

Que doblen las campanas silenciadas. Pero que doblen por todas las víctimas del terror, que en realidad son una sola víctima: el pueblo cubano que, sin hacer distinciones, sufre por la pérdida de cada uno de sus hijos.

El Cristo de la Habana no está dando la espalda a los que murieron, está llamando a los que viven para que no vivan en la mentira paralizados por el miedo, sino que busquen la verdad con la esperanza de que podemos vivir  todos los cubanos libres y como hermanos. Así, un día cercano, esa plaza y toda Cuba, se inundarán de banderas cubanas y de banderas blancas flotando en el canto de todos  que proclamará: ¡por fin la paz y la libertad¡

Oswaldo José Payá  Sardiñas
La Habana, 13 de Julio de 2009