The United States continues in its determination to slander and discredit the Cuban Revolution, claiming on multiple occasions and against all evidence, that the Cuban medical missions are a form of “forced labor.” The most recent manifestation of this poorly concocted U.S. obsession was a letter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to the Organization of American States (OAS) that asks for details concerning bilateral agreements between OAS member states and Cuba regarding Cuban medical missions in search of information about potential labor-related complaints related to those missions (Coto 2025). Some ‘non for profit’ organizations allege that the Cuban doctors are, in fact, slaves. One such organization is the “Free Society Project” also known as “Archivo Cuba”. It is an organization with strong ties to the most hardened enemies of the Cuban Revolution in the US government such as the former US ambassador to Venezuela, Otto Reich, who serves as a consultant to the organization. Organizations such as the Free Society Project and Marco Rubio claim that Cuban humanitarian assistance and internationalist missions are really a form of slavery.

The letter from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights followed a wave of unilateral coercive measures from the Trump Administration and announced by Marco Rubio on February 25, 2025 to restrict the visas of Cuban officials, people involved with Cuban missions and even family members involved with the missions (Yaffe 2025). The effect and the objective of these measures are to weaken Cuban medical collaboration with the countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia and, thereby remove an important source of income for the island. In addition, these measures weaken the healthcare systems of the receiving countries. It is important to emphasize that the medical assistance from Cuba typically serves in rural, vulnerable and underserved areas in addition to providing high quality services in areas of extreme need.

Cuban Medical Internationalism

The first long term program of Cuban medical internationalism began in Algeria in 1963, although Cuba had sent a short-term medical mission following a devastating earthquake to Chile in 1970, in spite of the challenging diplomatic relations between Cuba and the right wing Chilean government of that period (Kirk 2012: Chaple 2006; Grundy and Buderri 1980). Over the years, Cuban medical internationalism grew even larger than the international assistance provided by the World Health Organization (Yaffe 2025). Compiling and documenting the range and impact of this assistance to Global South countries requires serious academic, sociological, and historical research, as well as serving as hard evidence against the faulty and hypocritical accusations of people such as Marco Rubio. Since 1959, Cuba has sent international medical teams in response to emergencies and disasters in many countries. Some of these include: Peru (in response to an earthquake in 1970), to Pakistan (responding to the earthquake of 2005), to Indonesia and Sri Lanka (Responding to a Tsunami in 2004), to Haiti (responding to a hurricane in 2004 and again in 2010 to the devastating earthquake), to Guatemala (in 2004 in response to Hurricane Stan), to China (in 2008 in response to an earthquake) to Nepal (in response to the 2015 earthquake) and many other nations (González et al 2016).

The Cuban rapid response medical brigade that responds to international medical emergencies and natural disasters is known as the Henry Reeves International Medical Brigade. In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) awarded the Henry Reeves Brigade the Dr. Lee Jong Wock Memorial Prize for World Health at the World Health Assembly. According to the WHO and PAHO, by 2017, the Henry Reeves’ Brigade had treated more than 3.5 million people and had saved around 80,000 lives. In addition, Cuba has sent doctors to fight against outbreaks of infectious diseases such as dengue in Brazil (in 1991), El Salvador (in 2000), and Honduras (in 2002), Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone (in 2014 and 2015). The Henry Reeves Brigade served in more than twenty countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe to combat COVID 19 in 2020 (MINREX 2020). This assistance grew over the following years, and according to Yaffe (2023), 57 Henry Reeves Brigades had provided assistance to more than forty countries and treated 1.26 million people infected with COVID. Many of these doctors joined forces with Cuban medical internationalist programs that were already working in sixty-six countries (Yaffe 2023). The shameful attempt by the United States and Rubio to destroy and discredit this noble and honorable example of international solidarity, leaves the vulnerable populations of the receiving countries forgotten and underserved.

If the value of Cuban medical assistance were to be calculated for the more than 180 countries that have benefited from Cuba’s internationalist assistance for just the period between 1999 and 2015, the amount would come to around $71.5 billion dollars or approximately 6.6% of Cuba’s annual GDP (Morales 2017; Yaffe 2023). During this period, roughly 29,000 Cuban health professionals on internationalist missions conducted 1.395 billion general consultations, completed seven million minor surgeries, and three million major surgeries. In addition to these figures, Cuba graduated over 73,000 foreign health professionals. According to data analyzed by Morales (2017), this medical assistance has saved the lives of approximately 5.8 million people.

In addition to the direct and significant assistance that Cuba provides to vulnerable communities, Cuba has helped to build medical schools in various countries and to educate doctors from many countries in the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). Far from trying to foster dependency on Cuban medical services, Cuba trains physicians so that they will work in high-need areas. For example, as indicated by John Kirk (2012), “since the 1970s Cuba has assisted in the founding of medical schools in several countries, including Yemen (1976), Guyana (1984), Ethiopia (1984), Uganda (1986), Ghana (1991), Gambia (2000), Equatorial Guinea (200), Haiti (2001), Guinea Bissau (2004), and East Timor (2005)”. Recently, Cuba and Gambia renewed their bilateral agreement, and in addition to serving in many locations in the country. The Cubans will work to educate young Gambians at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Gambia in Banjul (Foroyaa 2024).

The strategy of educating people from vulnerable and underserved areas combines with the norms attached to the scholarships for a medical education in Cuba. The goal is that the new doctors, nurses, and health technicians return to their country to serve in the areas of greatest need. It is noteworthy that in spite of the US government’s hostility toward Cuba (that dates from the beginning of the Cuban Revolution) that Cuba maintains an attitude of solidarity toward the people of the United States, especially towards the more vulnerable sectors of the US population. This was clearly manifested with Cuba’s offer to send a Henry Reeves’ medical brigade to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina (even though President Bush rejected this offer).

Cuba’s solidarity with the people of the US also is reflected in the full scholarships for US students to study in Cuba, largely in ELAM. As Samira Addrey, the coordinator of the ELAM scholarship program of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) located in Harlem informs me that after the current eleven US students graduate in 2025, there will be 245 US doctors graduated from ELAM. Of those 245 graduates, 101 are serving in sectors that are vital to US communities; many of them are in areas characterized by a scarcity of medical personnel. Meanwhile, the remaining 144 are either finishing their residencies or are fully licensed. Unfortunately, three of the 234 previously graduated physicians who graduated from ELAM have passed away.

Further, in some cases, people from abroad go to Cuba to be treated without charge. Two salient examples include Operation Miracle where people who need eye operations (usually for cataracts) to restore their vision receive surgical operations (that also form part of Cuba’s medical missions abroad) and Cuba’s medical assistance to the over 26,000 victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Tarará, Cuba (Yaffe 2923; Fontan 2021). It is crucial to underscore that Cuban medical aid conforms to the UN objectives and guidelines for South-South cooperation established in 1978, is holistic, and is sensitive to the social determinants of health (Yaffe 2023; Christiansen 2010).

As is well known, Cuba treats healthcare as a human right and not as a commodity. Health services are free to all Cubans, as is guaranteed in the Cuban Constitution of 2019, just as in the previous Cuban Constitution of 1976. In the same way, the health services provided by Cuba abroad are done with the same spirit of humanism and solidarity, within the limits allowed by the system in which they are collaborating. All Cuban medical assistance is done in accordance with international law, working with receiving governments and often in conjunction with international health organizations such as the WHO (Marimón Torres and Martínes Cruz 2009).

A Personal Experience

In 2003 and 2004, I was serving in the Gambia as a Peace Corps volunteer and had the honor of meeting several members of the Cuban medical brigade in Essau, just north of the Gambia River. In 2003, when I was in Albreda, I had severe pain due to a kidney stone. There were no doctors in Albreda, nor did the Peace Corps have any doctors serving in the country. For us, as volunteers, we had only a nurse –but the Peace Corp health clinic for volunteers was located in Pipeline on the other side of the river, and the Banjul-Barra ferry in Niumi was closed. Nevertheless, I needed urgent help.

As I suffered, my host family began to worry considerably. I called the nurse, but she just told me to drink more water. Nevertheless, the situation was severe and had I been in the US, I would have gone to the hospital and they would have performed a lithotripsy operation. I pleaded for them to send the driver, Samanka, from the nearby village of Pakau so that he would take me to the Essau Health Center. He finally came, and I was seen by the Cuban doctors. My pain was alleviated with the medicine that they gave me, although there was no equipment to perform a lithotripsy. Months later, I accompanied one of the Cuban doctors to provide a consultation for Tumbulu Jammeh, the mother of my host family in Essau, Gambia.

The Desperate and Hypocritical Attack against Cuban Medical Internationalism

The attack against Cuban medical internationalism began in 2006 with the Cuban Medical Professional Parole program. The objective of this program was to tempt Cuban doctors to abandon the posts where they are serving vulnerable communities with a permanent residence status, visas, and assistance finding work and housing in the United States (Latner 2020; Feinsilver 2009). While it is undeniable that conditions in Cuba are economically difficult, largely due to the decades-long US economic war against the island, these attempts did have a negative impact on Cuban medical missions. However, fewer than 2% of Cuban internationalist volunteers abandoned their mission, totaling some 1,574 by the year 2011 (Latner 2020). Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of Cuban doctors remained faithful to their missions and country, belying the vicious and dishonest story of “slavery” by their example.

The fact is that the portion of money from the payments to the Cuban government that do not go to the doctors on international missions goes to the Cuban healthcare system, a system that is under severe attack by the United States (Yaffe 2025; Latner 2020). Far from being a system of slavery, Cuban doctors voluntarily serve in the receiving countries, continue to receive their regular salary in Cuba, receive a stipend in the countries in which they are serving, and have vacations. It is important to keep in mind that, in some cases, Cuba provides the help free of charge to the receiving countries, in other cases a third country helps to pay the cost of the Cuban collaboration, and in the case of countries with more resources (such as Qatar) Cuba is paid directly (Yaffe 2023). For example, in 2017, of the 62 countries where Cuban doctors where serving, “27 of them paying nothing for Cuba’s medical services and the remaining 35 paying on a ‘sliding scale.’” (Latner 2020: 336).

Apart from the fact that it is a mockery of those who have really suffered the problem of human trafficking and an insult to the memory of slavery in the United States itself, the depiction of Cuban doctors on internationalist missions as slaves is an attempt to damage Cuba and constitutes yet one more way of intensifying the U.S. economic war against the island. The US has been obsessed with destroying the Cuban Revolution since 1969 when the July 26^th Movement overthrew the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. In addition to the US economic war that is universally condemned in the UN General Assembly, the US provides funds towards the aim of discrediting Cuba and particularly seeking to disparage its medical internationalism, which has gained almost universal sympathy. For example, in 2020, USAID increased it anti-Cuban propaganda program by three million dollars so that grant recipients would investigate “the human rights of Cuban doctors working abroad” (Latner 2020: 332).

Furthermore, these disingenuous criticisms originate from a government who maintains relations with some of the world’s worst human rights violators. The US has aided and continues to aid Israel in its commission of genocide in Gaza, in addition to helping Israel carry out a war of aggression against Iran. Meanwhile, inside the US, both human rights and the Bill of Rights are under attack. One only has to look at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attack’s against immigrants, or the war against student activists protesting the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Marco Rubio himself admitted that he removed Mahmoud Khalil’s permanent residence status and had him detained for his political views (Atkins and Lavietes 2025). History repeated itself in the case of Leqaa Kordia, who is detained in the US for protesting against the US/Israeli genocide that has killed more than 100 people of her family in Gaza (Suleiman 2025).

It is diaphanously clear that Rubio and the US government’s zeal to sabotage Cuba’s international medical collaboration constitutes an attack against the health of the planet’s most vulnerable populations, in addition to basing itself on shameful slanders and constituting an attack on the Cuban people. Is Rubio really concerned for the health and wellbeing of the Ghanaian, Mozambican, Honduran or Haitian populations? Are Rubio and the United States truly interested in seeing an improvement in living standards for the Cuban people, or an increased ability of the Cuban government to be able to pay its doctors higher salaries? If the United States were truly interested in the salaries of Cuban doctors, they would not have allocated enormous sums of money to destroy the Cuban economy. Cuba’s program, far from deserving false criticism, merits the highest recognition. We should word to emulate such examples of solidarity, not slander them.

The more the US attempts to defame and undermine Cuba’s medical internationalism, the more the real imperialist face of the US and its disdain for the peoples of the world and their health are exposed. The US intends to hurt and punish the Cuban people even more for having had the audacity to defy the empire and try to create a system different from global capitalism. They punish a country that has demonstrated its faithful commitment to health as an international human right. However, Cuba’s example belies the calumnies of the US government. While the United States sends weapons to Israel for Israeli soldiers to murder the starving people of Gaza, a population currently facing starvation due to an orchestrated famine where food is used as bait to commit daily massacres, Cuba sends doctors to the world. Doctors and not bombs.

Works Cited.

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