Does forced labor of Cuban doctors and shipyard workers amount to a contemporary form of slavery?

From: CubaBrief

Ms. Urmila Bhoola, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, along with Ms Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children, sent a letter on November 6, 2019 to the Cuban government regarding the regime's medical missions in which the special rapporteurs indicated that "according to forced labor indicators established by the International Labor Organization. Forced labor constitutes a contemporary form of slavery."

However this is not the first time that the issue of the Castro regime engaged in the trafficking of Cuban workers was addressed formally as a contemporary form of slavery. Fourteen years ago a civil suit was filed in a U.S. District court in Miami that disclosed "that up to 100 Cuban shipyard workers are forced to work against their will at Curacao Drydock Co., a ship repair company with an agent in Delray Beach, Klattenberg Marine Associates" in conditions that were "practically slave labor" fixing up vessels.

The suit was filed by three workers who escaped [ Alberto Justo Rodríguez, Fernando Alonso Hernández and Luis Alberto Casanova Toledo] and revealed that "they were ordered to work 16-hour shifts for $16 a month." ... "According to the suit, the men often worked 112 hours a week. Their wage amounted to 3 ½ cents an hour." The suit was filed in August 2006 and was first reported by the Associated Press. The Cuban government was using the Cuban workers' labor to pay back what the regime owed to Curacao Dry Dock Company for the repair of Cuban ships.

Alberto J Rodríguez, Fernando A Hernández and Luis A Casanova Toledo

Similar to the Cuban doctors, the shipyard workers upon their transfer to Curacao had their passports seized, and were monitored by state security and held against their will.

"The men were forced to labor in sweltering weather and dangerous conditions, like hanging from scaffolds. When Rodríguez broke his foot and ankle in 2002 while scraping rust from the hull of a ship, he was sent home to heal -- and then ordered back after his recovery. [...] Plaintiff Luis Alberto Casanova once suffered an electric shock but was forced to finish his shift despite bleeding from his tongue. The workers' supervisors were other Cubans, including a nephew of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the suit alleges. ''They always told us if we didn't work, they'd throw us out of the country, fire us and send us to jail,'' Rodríguez said. "Really, we were slaves. We didn't have a voice or a vote.''

The Miami Herald continued to follow the story and reported on it in 2008.The trio were awarded US$50 million as compensation and US$30 million as punitive damages in 2008, in a default judgment, and the appeals process has continued over the next 12 years. On  May 27, 2015 the Curacao Chronicle, in the article "Slave labor victims of Curaçao Dry Dock get nod enforce $67million USA claim" reported that "the quest by three modern-day slaves for US$80 million in restitution has come to the Singapore port of call. Three Cuban slave-labor victims were given the High Court’s go-ahead to enforce a US$50 million claim won in a United States court against any assets that the Curaçao dry dock has in Singapore. The High Court rejected the bid by Curaçao Drydock Company to set aside the US judgment, making clear the claims were enforceable in Singapore as they were meant to compensate the victims, not punish the company."



Ironically, the World Health Organization (WHO) and its American subsidiary, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) published a hand out in 2012 on human trafficking that includes the above chart on "health and well being at various stages of trafficking." This is ironic because in December 2018, the PAHO was named in a class action lawsuit  by Cuban doctors, who are trafficking victims, who claim that the international health organization had "collected over $75 million since 2013 by enabling and managing the illegal trafficking of Cuban medical professionals." Both organizations have been under scrutiny for their relationships with dictatorships, and reporting on outbreaks of dangerous diseases.

Secrecy continues to shroud these arrangements between the Castro dictatorship and other countries, but from time to time information arises that illuminates the reality behind the propaganda.

Rebecca Davis, of The Daily Maverick, in her May 9, 2020 podcast "Don't Shoot the Messenger" reported that the South African state is being charged over R450 million ( $24,434,550.00 ) for the Cuban medical mission sent to South Africa to fight Covid-19. Meanwhile, South African doctors who trained overseas do not have the right to practice medicine in their home country. "Unlike with the Cuban doctors, nobody is rolling out the red carpet for these unemployed local medics." revealed Davis. She also interviewed Rene Govender, an advocate, who has spent years trying to obtain the right for these South African doctors to practice in South Africa, who reflected the outrage of these medical doctors at the Cubans getting a green light to practice, while they are still denied.



Mary O'Grady in her May 10, 2020 column, "How Cuba’s Spies Keep Winning" published in The Wall Street Journal explained how "Cuba has myriad ways of spreading disinformation, combating critics, and widening its influence. Return access to the island for journalists and academics, for example, is denied when there is unfavorable coverage, which is presumably why yours truly cannot get a visa."

This explains, in part the positive press coverage, but the profitable trafficking of doctors can be explained by another common practice. "Blackmail is another method of manipulation," and O'Grady explains how she has "twice interviewed a Cuban defector who told me it was his job in Cuba to retrieve video cassettes from hidden cameras in hotel rooms and official residences where visiting dignitaries were staying. The goal was to capture on film compromising behavior that could be used to extort political favors or, for example, force a resignation. With heavy political and diplomatic traffic to the island from Europe and Washington, it’s a safe bet that at least a few have been compromised in this way."

However, the heavy diplomatic traffic also involves Latin America and Africa. The same practices can be applied there, and would explain how the Castro regime could charge over $24 million dollars for what is billed in the press as a "humanitarian deployments."

Dr. Jaime Suchlicki interviewed in the publication The DePaulia on April 27, 2020 provided greater context on the Cuban government's "Doctor Diplomacy" agenda explaining that, "If you go to Cuban hospitals you will find out that they’re understaffed.”  The director of the Cuban Studies Institute added, “a lot of the better doctors are out of the country,” and that "Cuba still does not have enough equipment, medicine, or doctors to combat a pandemic and to receive support from the government." Dr. Suchlicki concluded that the Cuban dictatorship's "top priority is economic and second political influence to vote with Cuba and support Cuba’s position internationally.”

However, international political influence also means that the Cuban dictatorship inserts itself into national politics. Over the past six decades the regime has used bombs and bullets, but also "doctor diplomacy" to advance its objectives in ways that violate medical standards and ethics. The New York Times on March 17, 2019 reported that Cuban doctors on orders from their ideologically committed higher ups have been ordered to deny patients needed treatment in exchange for political loyalty and not all the folks dressed like health care workers, were healthcare workers but some were just playing the role.