When Communist Propaganda Runs Amuck: The Castro regime's tourist trap in Cuba

Communists lie people die

Italian tourist in Cuba: "“[w]e are in a terrible hospital, in awful sanitary conditions"

Channel News Asia reported on March 24th, "[a]s Latin American countries slowly began to close themselves off from the outside world against the threat of the virus over the last few weeks, Cuba continued to try to woo tourists - who brought in US$3.3 billion in 2018 - with wide-open borders and touting itself as a safe destination."

Cubanet reported on March 15th that Marta Cavallo, an Italian tourist diagnosed with coronavirus and admitted to the “Pedro Kourí” Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), over Facebook denounced conditions at the hospital, located west of Havana stating,“[w]e are in a terrible hospital, in awful sanitary conditions, when they give us food, they ask us to drink the soup from the plate, [without a spoon], there is not even toilet paper … they do not give us news of any kind, and it is impossible to talk with any doctor.”

Below is an advertisement posted on March 9, 2020 by Havanatur, a tourism company owned by the Cuban military that claims that because "Cuba is bathed in the rays of the sun all year, and taking pertinent measures they have greater strengths before COVID-19 and that Cuba is a safe destination"  showing a picture of folks on the beach in Cuba, without masks contrasted with two women with masks in an urban setting somewhere else.

On March 20, 2020, The Sun published "WHERE CAN I TRAVEL? Coronavirus travel advice: The full list of holiday destinations Brits can and can’t travel to" by Lisa Minot with a long list of countries either banning or putting strong restrictions on travel, but Cuba was still open for business:

"Cuba - No restrictions on entering the country. Screening on arrival, if presenting symptoms you may be taken to health facilities in Havana."

This at a time when Cuba is suffering from shortages of soap, and toiletries for Cubans in the island, and conditions in hospitals that do not meet minimum hygiene standards. Below is video smuggled out of a hospital in Cuba with patients exhibiting coronavirus symptoms.

Condiciones de los pacientes con sintomatología de coronavirus en un hospital de #CubaSocialista, @DiazCanelB ustedes son el verdadero y único enemigo del pueblo cubano. pic.twitter.com/HOG0unxtLI

— Andry Cuba (@CubaAndry) March 22, 2020

 On March 11, 2020 the  official press reported that four Italian tourists who were staying at a hostel in the southern town of Trinidad after arriving at Havana airport on March 9, 2020 had presented respiratory symptoms and were taken to a hospital on March 10th, and on Wednesday the hospital confirmed three of the tourists had tested positive for the coronavirus.

This was most likely a clever move after Panama's Ministry of Health, a day earlier, on March 10th reported that two Panamanians, ages 55 and 29 who visited Cuba had tested positive for the coronavirus when they returned home.

The Castro regime has invested heavily in international propaganda campaigns, and doctor diplomacy (that often times turns out to be human trafficking) to create a positive, but false, image of Cuba as a medical super power. Worse yet, the Cuban dictatorship has a history of covering up epidemics in order to lure in unsuspecting tourists. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak the most recent documented outrage was a Zika outbreak in 2017.
The 2017 Zika hidden outbreak in Cuba should have given pause to those planning to travel to the island on holiday in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Yale School of Public Health’s Nathan Grubaugh and his colleagues in a 2019 report revealed a total of 5,700 Zika cases in 2017 that went unreported by the Castro regime, and observed that the “2017 Zika outbreak in Cuba was similar in size to the known 2016 outbreaks in countries with similar population sizes.”  

Duane Gubler at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore said Cuba had "a history of not reporting epidemics until they become obvious," and that this was due to their desire to maintain high levels of tourism into the country.

The Castro regime has confirmed 57coronavirus cases, 1,479 people are hospitalized for surveillance and 37,788 are being checked in on by medical students. Based on past history, things are most probably far worse on the island.

This is what the Cuban military that runs tourism in Cuba delivered.

 

 

BBC reports Thomas Cook holidaymakers and crew 'trapped' in Cuba

Tourists trapped in Cuba. Prevented from leaving hotel by security guards.

Text messages say Cuba is the "worst place to be stranded" and ask for help.

 Thomas Cook, a 178-year-old British travel company and airline, declared bankruptcy on September 23, 2019, suspending operations and leaving hundreds of thousands of tourists stranded worldwide. It also exposes how tourist industries in different countries respond to this mess.

Cuba has proven to not be a normal country, and their hospitality industry has more in common with a military command style then with the service industry.  BBC News reported today in the article "Thomas Cook holidaymakers and crew 'trapped' in Cuba" reported how the Cuba tourist industry operates in a military like fashion:

"There are security guards at the hotel the crew are at to prevent them from leaving. They haven't even been guaranteed rooms for tonight, so it could be a case of sleeping on the reception floor," a colleague of the staff affected told the BBC. She urged action to get the staff home, saying 'they've already been through more than enough'. Another holidaymaker, Shaun Woods, said his flight was due to depart on Wednesday, but the hotel said it would not let them get on the bus to the airport until they paid."

Tourists have consistently been warned of the dangers of traveling to Cuba, and the failure of the travel industry to accurately inform their clients. Travel agencies have been sued by their clients for misrepresenting conditions in Cuba. 

Please share! This is mental and this is REAL! My friends are being held in Cuba!!! #Thomascookcrew #ThomasCookcollapse #thomascookairlines pic.twitter.com/cE1TNO9Vpc

— Natalie Sandiford (@NatSandiford) September 24, 2019

Tourism in Cuba is run by the Cuban military conglomerate GAESA. On September 9, 2016 the Associated Press in the article “Cuban military expands its economic empire under détente” reported:

“The military’s long-standing business wing, GAESA (Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group), assumed a higher profile after Gen. Raul Castro became president in 2008, positioning the armed forces as perhaps the prime beneficiary of a post-detente boom in tourism. Gaviota, the military’s tourism arm, (a subsidiary of GAESA) is in the midst of a hotel building spree that outpaces projects under control of nominally civilian agencies like the Ministry of Tourism.” The same article also reported that “Gaviota has 62 hotels with 26,752 rooms across Cuba, pulling in some $700 million a year from more than 40 percent of the tourists who visit Cuba.”

The military general in charge of GAESA is Luis Alberto Rodriguez, is General Raul Castro’s son in law.  Obtaining hard currency for the dictatorship is GAESA's chief objective.  This includes covering up epidemics to ensure that tourists continue visiting the island.

On January 8, 2019 New Scientist reported, "Cuba failed to report thousands of Zika virus cases in 2017." Havana also failed to report outbreaks of Dengue (1997) and Cholera (2012). Jailing those who warned the world of the threat. 

In the case of Spain that translated into 42 imported cases of the Zika virus in travelers to Cuba.     While travelers had visited other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, "the Zika cases were only identified in those who visited Cuba."

It is important to inform prospective tourists both on the risks and also on how to engage in purposeful travel to Cuba. This includes how to avoid becoming a mouthpiece for the dictatorship. The bottom line is that Cuba has a lot more in common with North Korea than with Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, and tourists should take that into account.

University of Michigan researchers say they have answers on how U.S. diplomats and tourists were harmed in Cuba

This story is far from over

Spy tech may have caused the injuries to diplomats and tourists.

The Michigan Engineer News Center reported on March 1, 2018 that Kevin Fu, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan "reverse-engineered the attacks in a lab" and his team "showed how ultrasonic signals—outside the range of human hearing—can combine to produce audible and potentially dangerous tones similar to the undulating, high-pitched chirping that the diplomats described."

This attacks began in November of 2016 and were reported on in December of 2016. The State Department knew that diplomats were suffering brain trauma in Havana in February of 2017 and evacuated 40 Americans over the next two months.  On January 29, 2018 the news broke that 19 U.S. tourists had also suffered brain trauma in Cuba.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a preliminary report on February 15, 2018 and an accompanying editorial studying health impacts on 21 U.S. government employees in Havana between December 2016 and August 2017. These individuals had severe injuries and the bottom line on medical findings are that:

Concussion-like symptoms were observed in U.S. government personnel in Cuba after they reported hearing intensely loud sounds in their homes and hotel rooms and feeling changes in air pressure caused by an unknown source. The symptoms were consistent with brain injury although there was no history of head trauma.

There are efforts in the media to spin the news about the harm done to these diplomats and tourists without considering some difficult questions.

Secretary Tillerson had to protect his staff by limiting our work at @USEmbCuba to emergency services. While our investigation is ongoing, rather than find excuses, #Cuba should focus on helping to locate who or what is responsible for the harm caused to American citizens.

— Heather Nauert (@statedeptspox) March 6, 2018

First if, as the Castro regime claims, the attacks never happened and are mass hysteria, the sounds recorded crickets then why are there physical manifestations of lasting injuries?

Secondly, if as the University of Michigan engineering professor asserts that the harm done was an "accidental side effect of attempted eavesdropping" then why did these injuries began in November of 2016 and continue through August 2017? Only ending after news of the injuries went public.

Castro agents have used listening devices for decades targeting diplomats. What changed? Why didn't the Castro regime immediately stop it when the injuries began to pile up?

The State Department tonight raised the issue of Cuba's responsibility under the Vienna Convention to protect U.S. diplomats stationed in Cuba. The consequences are grave. Staff cutbacks at the Embassy in Cuba were to be permanent the State Department announced on March 2, 2018.

Questions, if true: Why wouldn’t the Cubans admit it? Wouldn’t the CIA arrived at this conclusion months ago? In the middle, Cuban families affected by visa suspensions. #Cuba #Havana https://t.co/8LwRrynlyt

— Nora Gámez Torres (@ngameztorres) March 3, 2018

Questions remain in this mystery, but three years later Obama's Cuba policy legacy can be summed up as: brain damaged diplomats, the sounds of crickets, and an internationally legitimized dictatorship.  Hopefully the current Administration will turn things around.

Tourists and travel to Cuba: What the travel agencies don't tell you about health and hygiene

 In July 2013 an Italian tourist returned from Cuba with severe renal failure due to Cholera. New York high school teacher Alfredo Gómez contracted cholera during a family visit to Havana during the summer of 2013 and was billed $4,700 from the government hospital. A total of 12 tourists have been identified who have contracted cholera in Cuba.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/26/3587434/cuba-reports-more-cholera-among.html#storylink=cpy

Cholera patients in Cuba (CNN)

Cuba is normally safe as long as you are reasonably careful about what you eat and drink. The common travel-related diseases, such as dysentery and hepatitis, are acquired by the consumption of contaminated food and water. While Cuba has a relatively low incidence of HIV any visitors should take obvious precautions if engaging in intimate relations on the island.
Mosquito born illnesses are not a significant concern on most of Cuba although you should be aware when there is a periodic outbreak of dengue. Sand flies can be a serious irritant on certain beaches but this is to be expected as the price of paradise!
Tap water in Cuba is not considered as reasonably safe to drink. Most Cuban households will boil water before drinking and foreigners should follow this procedure unless you have good quality purification filters. - Visit Cuba FAQs

Compared to the rosy descriptions offered on crime in Cuba by the travel industry, the advisories above are a little better but there is still a lot that is left out. First, the claim that Cuba has a low incidence of HIV is based on government provided statistics. Secondly, there is no mention of the Cholera out break that was announced in July of 2012 and is still ongoing across the island with official reports emerging from Camaguey, Granma, Guantanamo, Havana, and Santiago de Cuba.

This cholera outbreak needs to be placed in context. The current Cuban government, in power over the past 55 years, claims to be a healthcare super power. The current cholera outbreak is the first one in Cuba in 130 years. That is to say that the last cholera epidemic was while Cuba was still a Spanish colony. During Cuba's Republican era beginning in 1902 sanitation and hygiene were decent enough that cholera was not an issue.

Complicating the deterioration in the healthcare infrastructure is also the Cuban government's lack of candor in reporting on outbreaks of contagious diseases such as cholera and dengue. International media in Cuba are cautious about reporting bad news from Cuba. Journalists in Cuba have ample reason to fear being expelled having seen colleagues such as Chicago Tribune's Gary Marx, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs and Cesar Gonzalez-Calero of Mexico's El Universal all expelled in 2007 from Cuba for offering reporting that although bending over backwards not to offend still ran afoul of the regime.

News of the outbreak in Manzanillo, in the east of the island, broke in El Nuevo Herald on June 29, 2012 thanks to the reporting of the outlawed independent press in the island. The state controlled media did not confirm the outbreak until days later on July 3, 2012. The BBC reported on July 7, 2012 that a patient had been diagnosed with Cholera in Havana. The dictatorship states that it has it under control.  Calixto Martinez, the independent journalist who reported the story on July 13, 2012, was imprisoned in September of 2012 in horrible conditions and released in April of 2013 for informing the public about the healthcare threat and the poor government response. Amnesty International had declared him a prisoner of conscience in January of 2013.

Pan American Health Organization reported that Cuban officials informed on September 27, 2013 that there have been 678 cases of cholera and 3 deaths but now claim that there are no new cases reported as of October 1, 2013. 

The Cuban regime made the same claim that the outbreak was over more than a year earlier on August 29, 2012 when they admitted that there had been 417 cholera cases and 3 cholera deaths.

An employee of the public health ministry, "who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to comment to the media," told Reuters on August 22, 2013: "There is cholera in various places and you can imagine we are having a very busy summer ..."Many of us think the government should stop keeping it a secret."

This is not the first time that someone suffered for speaking out to protect the public from an epidemic or that the Cuban government has tried to cover it up.

In 1997 when a Dengue epidemic broke out in Cuba the dictatorship tried to cover it up. When a courageous doctor spoke out he was locked up on June 25, 1997 and later sentenced to 8 years in prison for enemy propaganda and called a liar. Amnesty International recognized Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero as a prisoner of conscience. He was released from prison under condition he go into exile in December of 1998. The Cuban government eventually had to recognize that there had been a dengue epidemic.

Hospital in Cuba

"The Cuban government has established a for-profit medical system for foreigners called SERVIMED, which is entirely separate from the free, not-for-profit system that takes care of Cuban citizens. There are more than 40 SERVIMED facilities throughout the country including in all of the major tourism centers. The major clinic for foreigners in Havana is the Cira Garcia one in Miramar.
In the event of an accident or other emergency foreigners may be taken to the nearest accident and emergency center, which may be at a Cuban state hospital. Conditions here at least aesthetically are likely to be below expectations for many foreigners although the standard of care is typically very good from the doctors. Once a foreign patient can be moved typically he will be transferred to a SERVIMED clinic such as Cira Garcia in Havana, which is set up to deal with foreigners." - Visit Cuba FAQs

Travel agencies also claim that Cuban healthcare is adequate but that depends on where you wind up. There is a two tiered health care system as they describe above, and Cubans will tell you that the standard of care and hygiene at the hospitals for nationals is terrible not to mention the chronic shortages.

Katherine Hirschfeld, an anthropologist, in Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898 writes how her idealistic preconceptions were dashed by 'discrepancies between rhetoric and reality,' she observed a repressive, bureaucratized and secretive system, long on 'militarization' and short on patients' rights. In a January 10, 2008 article in The Miami Herald, "Author disputes Cuban healthcare 'myths'"reported on her first hand experience with the Cuban healthcare system:

Her stays were mostly in Santiago, from 1996 through 1998, when she was a graduate student at Emory University and Cuba was in the midst of a dengue fever epidemic that the government tried to hush up. When she experienced the symptoms -- aching joints, fever, nausea, sore throat -- she was taken to a Santiago hospital and placed in a large ward guarded by a man with a gun. She asked to make a phone call to tell people where she was. The guard said there were no working phones.
' `Oh my God,' I thought to myself. 'This place doesn't exist,' '' at least not officially, because the epidemic was a state secret. During her stay, she says she never saw a doctor. She was given one pill -- a vitamin. Fortunately, she had a mild case. Because there were few nurses, she and other patients who were able did what they could for the sickest, especially those who were bleeding or vomiting.

 This is again another reminder that Cuba is unlike any other country in the Western hemisphere because it is a totalitarian communist dictatorship that has more in common with North Korea than it does Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic. The failure of the travel industry to take this into account when reporting on Cuba is not only a travesty but a disservice to their clientele.