This pandemic has affirmed that public healthcare needs cannot be adequately met under a profit-based system

On March 23, 2021, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a group of Conservative Party backbenchers: ‘The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed, my friends.’ Johnson was articulating the dogma that the pursuit of private profit through capitalist free markets leads to efficient outcomes. In reality, however, Britain’s accomplishments in developing the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and in the national vaccination rollout have more to do with state investments than the market mechanism. Government money subsidized the vaccine development at the University of Oxford, and it is the state-funded National Health Service that has carried out the vaccination program. Johnson did not admit that it is due to capitalism and greed that Britain now has the fifth worst COVID-19 mortality rate in the world with over 126,500 deaths (almost 1,857 per million people in the population) and counting.

The British government, like most neoliberal regimes, refused to take the measures necessary to slow and halt community transmission, it failed early on to provide health care and social care workers with adequate PPE and other resources which could have saved the lives of hundreds of frontline staff who died as a result. It contracted private businesses to carry out essential activities, most with little or no relevant experience, for example, instead of equipping the community-based GP system of the National Health Service to take charge of ‘track and trace,’ the government dished out £37 billion to Serco to manage part of the system. In public health terms it has been disastrous; but measured by Boris Johnson’s celebrated standards of capitalism and greed it is has indeed excelled. The greatest beneficiaries of Britain’s response to the pandemic have been the private corporations making huge profits. Around 2,500 Accenture, Deloitte and McKinsey consultants are on an average daily rate of £1,000, with some paid £6,624 a day.

Johnson has now laid out a road map for reopening the economy. As a result, even the most optimistic scenario predicts a third wave between September 2021 and January 2022 resulting in at least 30,000 additional deaths in Britain. These deaths are preventable. But it precisely because the British government is driven by the capitalism and greed that it insists that we have to learn to ‘live with the virus’ so that the business of business can continue.

Contrary to Johnson’s claims, this pandemic has affirmed that public healthcare needs cannot be adequately met under a profit-based system. Indeed, it is the absence of the capitalist profit motive which underlies the outstanding domestic and international response to COVID-19 by socialist Cuba, which now has five vaccines in clinical trials and is set to be among the first nations to vaccinate its entire population.

By reacting quickly and decisively, by mobilizing its public healthcare system and world-leading biotech sector, Cuba has kept contagion and fatalities low. In 2020 Cuba confirmed a total of 12,225 coronavirus cases and 146 deaths in a population of 11.2 million, among the lowest rates in the Western Hemisphere. In November 2020, the airports were opened, leading to a surge with more infections in January 2021 than the whole of the previous year. By March 24, 2021, Cuba had registered fewer than 70,000 cases and 408 deaths. The death rate was 35 per million and the fatality rate was just 0.59 percent (2.2 percent worldwide; 2.9 percent in Britain). Within one year, 57 brigades of medical specialists from Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Contingent had treated 1.26 million COVID-19 patients in 40 countries; they joined 28,000 Cuban healthcare professionals already working in 66 countries. Cuba’s accomplishments are more extraordinary given that from 2017 onwards, the Trump administration punitively unleashed 240 new sanctions, actions and measures to tighten the 60-year blockade of Cuba, including nearly 50 additional measures during the pandemic which cost the health sector alone over $200 million.

Cuba has gone on the offensive against COVID-19, mobilizing the prevention-focused, community based public healthcare system to carry out daily house visits to actively detect and treat cases and channeling the medical science sector to adapt and produce new treatments for patients and COVID-19 specific vaccines. These advances bring hope not just for Cuba, but for the world.

What is special about Cuba’s vaccines?

Some 200 COVID vaccines are being developed worldwide; by March 25, 2021, 23 candidates had advanced to phase III clinical trials. Two of those were Cuban (Soberana 2 and Abdala). No other Latin American country has developed its own vaccine at this stage. Cuba has three more vaccine candidates in earlier stage trials (Soberana 1, Soberana Plus and an intranasal, needle-free vaccine called Mambisa). How do we explain this accomplishment? Cuba’s biotech sector is unique; entirely state-funded and owned, free from private interests, profits are not sought domestically, and innovation is channeled to meet public health needs. Dozens of research and development institutions collaborate, sharing resources and knowledge, instead of competing, which facilitates a fast track from research and innovation to trials and application. Cuba has the capacity to produce 60-70 percent of the medicines it consumes domestically, an imperative due to the US blockade and the cost of medicines in the international market. There is also fluidity between universities, research centers, and the public health system. These elements have proven vital in the development of Cuba’s COVID-19 vaccines.

There are five types of COVID-19 vaccines being developed globally:

• Viral vector vaccines, which inject an unrelated harmless virus modified to deliver SARS-CoV-2 genetic material (Oxford AstraZeneca, Gamaleya and SputnikV)
• Genetic vaccines containing a segment of SARS-CoV-2 virus genetic material (Pfizer, Moderna)
• Inactivated vaccines containing disactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus (Sinovac,/Butantan, SinoPharm, Bharat Biotec)
• Attenuated vaccines containing weakened SARS-CoV-2 virus (Codagenix)
• Protein vaccines containing proteins from the virus which trigger an immune response (Novavax, Sanofi/GSK)

The five Cuban vaccines under clinical trials are all protein vaccines; they carry the portion of the virus spike protein which binds to human cells; it generates neutralizing antibodies to block the binding process. Dr Marlene Ramirez Gonzalez explains that they are, ‘subunit vaccines, one of the most economical approaches and the type for which Cuba has the greatest know-how and infrastructure. From protein S — the antigen or part of the SARS-CoV2 virus that all COVID vaccines target because it induces the strongest immune response in humans — Cuban candidates are based only on the part that is involved in contact with the cell’s receptor: the RBD (receptor-binding domain) which is also the one that induces the greatest amount of neutralizing antibodies. This strategy is not exclusive to Cuban vaccines. But Soberana 2 does distinguish itself from the rest of the world’s candidates as the only “conjugate vaccine.” Currently in phase III clinical trials, it combines RBD with tetanus toxoid, which enhances the immune response…Cuba had already developed another vaccine with this principle. It is Quimi-Hib, “the first of its kind to be approved in Latin America and the second in the world,” against Haemophilus influenzae type b, coccobacilli responsible for diseases such as meningitis, pneumonia and epiglottitis.’

Idania Caballero, a pharmaceutical scientist at BioCubaFarma points out that the vaccines build on decades of medical science and work on infectious diseases. “The mortality rate in Cuba due to infectious diseases, even in times of COVID, is less than one percent. Cuba today vaccinates against 13 diseases with 11 vaccines, eight of which are produced in Cuba. Six diseases have been eliminated as a result of vaccination schedules. The vaccines produced with these technologies have been administered even to children in the first months of life.”

The Soberana vaccines are produced by the Finlay Institute in partnership with the Centre for Molecular Immunology (CIM) and the Centre of Biopreparados. Soberana means ‘sovereign,’ reflecting its economic and political importance; without a domestic product, Cuba would struggle to access foreign vaccines either due to the US blockade or to the cost. Soberana vaccines insert genetic information into superior mammalian cells. Soberana Plus is a the world’s first vaccine for COVID-19 convalescent patients to reach clinical trials.

The other vaccines, Abdala and Mambisa, names which also pay tribute to Cuba’s struggle for independence, are produced by the Centre of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB). These vaccines insert genetic information in a less evolved organism, a unicellular microorganism (the yeast Pichia Pastoris). They build on the CIGB’s extraordinary record, including its Hepatitis B vaccines, used in Cuba for 25 years.

By developing different vaccine platforms, those institutions avoid competing for resources. Caballero explains that, “Cuba has the capacity to produce two independent vaccine chains, with over 90 million vaccines annually, while maintaining the required production of other products for the domestic market and for export.” The Cuban vaccines require three doses and, because they are stable at temperatures of between two and eight degrees, do not require costly special refrigeration equipment.

Phase III trials and ‘interventional studies’

By late March, phase III trials were underway for Soberana 2 and Abdala, each incorporating over 44,000 volunteers over 19 years old in regions with high incidence of COVID-19. Soberana 2 is being administered in Havana and Abdala in Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo. Analysis and follow-up for phase III trial patients will continue until January 2022 to investigate whether they prevent transmission, how long immunity lasts, and other questions that no vaccine producers can yet answer. However, an additional 150,000 healthcare workers in Havana are receiving Soberana 2 shots, as part of an ‘interventional study,’ a form of clinical trial that can be authorized after drug safety has been demonstrated in phase II. Intervention studies do not involve double blind testing or placebos. Another 120,000 healthcare workers in western Cuba will receive Abdala in the next few weeks. Other interventional studies in the capital will see 1.7 million people in Havana, most of the adult population, vaccinated by the end of May 2021, meaning that two million Cubans will have been fully vaccinated.

Assuming satisfactory results, in June the real national vaccination campaign will begin, prioritizing groups according to risk factors and starting with over 60-year-olds. By the end of August 2021, six million Cubans, over half the population, will have been covered and by the end of the year, Cuba will be among the world’s first countries to fully vaccinate its entire population.

Cuban medical scientists are confident that they have the capacity and experience to adapt their vaccine formulations, technologies and action protocols to tackle new variants. The next steps are for Soberana 1 and Soberana Plus to enter phase II trials and a new study involving five to 18-year-olds will be launched.

Cuba and China team up on Pan-Corona

Cuba’s CIGB have teamed up with colleagues in China to work on a new vaccine called Pan-Corona, designed to be effective on different strains of the coronavirus. It will use parts of the virus that are conserved, not exposed to variation, to generate antibodies, combined with parts directed at cellular responses. The Cubans contribute the experience and personnel, while the Chinese provide equipment and resources. The research will take place at the Yongzhou Joint Biotechnology Innovation Center, in China’s Hunan Province, which was established last year with equipment and laboratories designed by Cuban specialists. Gerardo Guillen, director of biomedical science at CIGB said the approach “could protect against epidemiological emergencies of new strains of coronavirus that may exist in the future.” The project builds on nearly two decades of medical science collaboration between Cuba and China, including five joint ventures in the biotech sector.

A vaccine for the Global South

Cuban professionals have received ten gold medals from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over 26 years; their biotech products were exported to 49 countries prior to the pandemic, including vaccines used in childhood immunization programs in Latin America. Cuba has stated that its COVID-19 vaccines will be exported to other countries. This brings hope to low- and middle-income nations that simply cannot afford to vaccinate their populations at high prices (between $10 and $30 per dose) demanded by big pharma. In February 2021, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported that US company Pfizer has been ‘bullying’ Latin American countries into putting up sovereign assets, such as embassy buildings and military bases, as guarantees against the cost of any future legal cases in relation to their COVID-19 vaccines.

Through an agreement with Iran’s Pasteur Institute, 100,000 Iranians will take part in the phase III clinical trials for Soberana 2 and another 60,000 people will participate in Venezuela. Other countries including Mexico, Jamaica, Vietnam, Pakistan, and India, have stated their interest in receiving the Cuban vaccines, as has the African Union, which represents all 55 nations in Africa. It is likely that Cuba will apply a sliding scale to its COVID-19 vaccine exports, as it does with the export of medical professionals, so what it charges reflects the countries’ ability to pay.

What Cuba has achieved is remarkable, but as Caballero states, “without the unjust US blockade, Cuba could have more and better results.” Cuba has become a world leader in biotechnology because it has a socialist state with a centrally planned economy, that has invested in science and technology and puts human welfare before profit; that is, with the absence of capitalism and greed that British Prime Minister Johnson celebrates.

Helen Yaffe is a lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow, specializing in Cuban and Latin American development. Her new book We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People have survived in a Post-Soviet World has just been published by Yale University Press. She is also the author of Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution and co-author with Gavin Brown of Youth Activism and Solidarity: the Non-Stop Picket against Apartheid, Rouledge, 2017.

A version of this essay was originally published in Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No. 280, April/May 2021.

Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro’s last address to the Cuban people was in May 2016, during the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC). “Leading a country in times of crisis requires a superhuman effort,” he said.

Before nearly 1,000 PCC members, Fidel foresaw that it would be “the last time I speak in this room.” “Representing the people must be the greatest honor a militant could ever receive in life, besides the privilege of being a revolutionary, which is a result of our own conscience,” he added.

In 2016, Cuba was moving forward in the economic and social reform process that would allow the island to shake off the crisis caused by Washington’s half-century-long blockade. “The course is set. We will proceed at a steady pace, without haste, but without pause,” then-President Raul Castro said on that occasion.

The 7th Congress coincided with the onset of the reestablishment of the diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S., the opening of embassies in both capitals, and the arrival of cruise ships and thousands of tourists eager to get closer to the Cuban culture and reality. The construction of prosperous, sustainable, and irreversible socialism seemed a little simpler on the island after the apparent cessation of hostilities that marked the neighboring country’s successive administrations.

However, the event also coincided with the start of the presidential campaigns in the U.S., where it was uncertain what would happen after the November 3, 2016 elections. Republican candidate Donald Trump won the presidency against all odds. His anti-communist diatribes and the contempt he professed towards the Cubans on the island and their government increased his popularity in South Florida, the cradle of Cuban emigration and the place from where innumerable attacks against the island have been organized and financed.

The following five years were very difficult for Cuba’s economic development. Trump imposed 242 new sanctions, reversed the few steps forward promoted by Barack Obama’s administration, tightened the blockade, and pursued more viciously those countries that dared trade with Cuba.

Despite these setbacks, Cuba undertook the unstoppable march about which Fidel and Raul spoke so much during the 7th Congress, “perfecting all that we must improve, with meridian loyalty, and united strength, as the main leaders of the independence battles did back in the 1860s.”

Today, Cubans are on the doorstep of a new PCC Congress with an economy battered by the aftermath of the Trump regime and the impact of the pandemic.

In Cuba, over 400 people have died from the disease. The numbers could have been much higher if the government had not managed to daily circumvent the obstacles of the blockade and prioritize scientific development.

“We will attend the 8th Party Congress in the midst of the pandemic, with very favorable results compared to other much more developed countries, and with five domestic vaccines in clinical trials, and with the highest rate of recovered patients in Latin America,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel said.

This will be an exceptional Congress, not only because it will take place amid an unprecedented global health crisis. For the first time in 62 years, a member of the historic generation will not be heading the main political organization of the Revolution.

The important meeting, which will take place from April 16 to 19 in Havana, will happen exactly 60 years after the Giron Beach invasion. The Bay of Pigs (as the invasion is known in the US) was a historic failure for the US government´s military efforts to take over the island.

As of this Friday, Cuba will live another milestone. A new generation of Party members will assume leadership from the Revolution´s historic generation. Although no abrupt changes in policy are expected, the new leadership will ratify the continuity and unity of the revolutionary process in Cuba.

The decision taken in the previous Party Congress to place an age limit on membership in the PCC Central Committee (60) and on leadership positions (70) will be keenly felt this Congress.  The passing of the torch to a new generation of Party members will stimulate the systematic rejuvenation of its entire militancy.

“Minute by minute, time is inexorably ticking away and shortening our lives. With these changes, we are repairing our Revolution’s great leader of today, tomorrow, and always: our Communist Party,” Raul Castro said in May 2016.

Fidel agreed. “Death will come for all of us, but the ideas of Cuban communists will remain as proof that, if we work with fervor and dignity, we can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need. We must transmit to our Latin American and worldwide brothers and sisters that the Cuban people will win.” Those were his last words in the Congress.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English

April 9 — We just received the sad news just that a dear friend of workers in the U.S. and around the world has died. Gilda Chacon Bravo served for many years in the International Department of the Cuban Workers’ Central Union (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba) and the World Federation of Trade Unions.

Workers who traveled from all parts of the globe to celebrate May Day in Havana met Gilda in the hallways of the Convention Center at the May 2 International Solidarity Conferences. She often attended the U.S.-Cuba Labor Exchange Conferences in Tijuana, Mexico.

In spring 2011, the U.S. labor movement vibrated with the massive upsurge in Wisconsin to defend workers’ rights. Although CTC representatives couldn’t directly get visas to tour the U.S., Gilda also represented the WFTU. Together with Pipino Cuevas Velazques of the Sindicato Mexicano De Electricistas — the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union — she traveled to Los Angeles, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Detroit and other cities. 

In Madison, Wis., she met with Voces de la Frontera, organizers for immigrant rights. In Washington, D.C., the AFL-CIO International Department met with her. 

Arriving by car in Baltimore from New York shocked her. She intently videoed real-life conditions of life under U.S. capitalism as she traveled. Gilda intended to share these hard images with her son and other Cuban youth bombarded by the false glitter of capitalist life. 

In addition to her role as a Cuban union leader, Gilda was also an elected representative from her neighborhood in Havana. 

We remember Gilda Chacon Bravo with much love and respect, as a strong, capable leader — a revolutionary Cuban woman.

Cuba and Zimbabwe have set in motion a plan to set up a local state-of-the-art pharmaceutical plant, in a development expected to improve local drug supplies in the long term.

Cuban Ambassador to Zimbabwe Carmelina Rodriguez told The Sunday Mail that the proposed plant will further consolidate bilateral relations between the two countries.

“Zimbabwe and Cuba enjoy a very good relationship,” she said.

“For 40 years we have developed a historical relationship based on friendship, mutual respect and collaboration. Cuba and Zimbabwe are working to further deepen and broaden the co-operation in the development of the pharmaceutical industry here through the establishment of a plant to produce medical drugs in the country.”

Cuba has a highly developed biotech industry, which exports vaccines and medicines for diseases such as meningitis, hepatitis B and lung cancer to more than 40 countries.

Ambassador Rodriguez said Zimbabwe would be among the first countries to receive Covid-19 vaccines currently under development by Cuban scientists.

Experts in the Latin American country are developing four Covid-19 vaccines: Soberana 01, Soberana 02, Mambisa and Abdala.

Soberana 02 is reported to be the most advanced candidate and has shown high immune response against the virus in trials.

“This month, we are starting the third phase of clinical trials involving more than 150 000 volunteers,” she said.

“Cuba has signed a deal to carry out clinical trials in Iran in collaboration with the country’s Pasteur Institute, and also Mexico has also expressed interest on it.

“The development of this vaccine is not fortuitous, Cuba has a long experience in developing and producing vaccines thanks to the long investment in the biopharmaceutical and biotech industry.

“Cuba’s national vaccination program includes 11 vaccines against 13 diseases, eight of which are produced locally.”

Ambassador Rodriguez said Zimbabwean and Cuban experts were undertaking scientific exchanges on a Cuban-developed antiviral drug — Interferon Alfa2b — which reduces 50 percent of the symptoms in Covid-19 patients.

Cuba has a medical brigade of 30 senior doctors working at various hospitals countrywide. The island nation has been under tough United States economic sanctions for the past 60 years.

Ambassador Rodriguez said the embargo was the biggest impediment to the country’s development.

“Despite the obsession of the government of the USA, Cuba has moved forward.

“We Cubans have been creative and have firmly resisted the onslaught of the worst economic siege, which has tried to suffocate the nation.”

Source: Sunday Mail

Adriana Pérez Oconor has been a chemical engineer since 1995. She currently works at the Food Industry Research Institute and holds a master’s degree in that specialty. But it is not precisely her professional performance, nor her outstanding work as a member of the National Assembly of People’s Power, in the period between 2013 and 2018, that is the main purpose of this interview.

This woman, with whom we spoke just a few days before International Women’s Day on  March 8, went from despair to the absolute happiness she lives today, in the company of her three children – Gema, Ámbar, and Gerardito – and her husband Gerardo Hernández Nordelo. This happiness, however, was preceded by an anguished road, which she only managed to travel by clinging to the courage inherited from Mariana, Celia, Haydée, and Vilma, among many other courageous Cuban women.

What was your reaction when you learned of Gerardo’s real mission in the United States?

When Gerardo left Cuba for the United States, we were already married, and when he was arrested in 1998, we had been married for ten years. I was finishing the last year of my degree through a course for workers, as I was working at the Tenería Habana company at the time.

The knowledge of Gerardo’s real mission was a real shock for me, a big surprise. As far as I knew he was in a Latin American country doing a master’s degree linked to his diplomatic career and I never knew about his mission until the whole network was discovered and its members arrested. When he was arrested, he had been in the United States for about four years. When I heard of his arrest, I learned of something that I never even suspected, nor did I imagine that he could be linked to this type of activity, being arrested for espionage, as was initially mentioned in the news reports broadcast by radio stations in Florida and that was the only public information that was given at the time. It was actually a mixture of emotions because first I had to assimilate the news. And second, how I would face a future that was totally uncertain and not at all promising.

On the other hand, there was the family situation. Gerardo’s mother was alive and completely unaware of the activities of her youngest and only son. In that same year, she had lost a daughter, and for her, this news would be too much of a blow, much harder still. In other words, the news not only had a personal impact but also had an impact from a family point of view. This meant that I had to prepare myself psychologically for the role I would have to play from that moment on. Information that to make matters worse, had to be kept secret and assumed in silence, which demanded all my efforts, all my creativity, and all the sentimental resources I could summon.

From that moment on I was obliged to impose myself on a world that I knew from the beginning was very difficult to cope with. I have often been asked how I managed to do it and I have never been able to give an answer because I still don’t know how I did it. But I think that as time goes by, you gather strength, willpower, resources, and energy to face the new challenges that life imposes on you. And to face those challenges with emotional balance, I began to create a kind of armor that would allow me to live in tune with what was happening and at the same time take on what was coming. I was always convinced that it would be a very complicated road to walk, especially if we take into account how relations between Cuba and the United States have historically been.

At no time, however, did I stop working and, on the contrary, I looked for things to occupy my mind, to keep me from thinking. I finished my master’s degree and began to study language, studies in which, although I never prospered, kept me mentally busy. At that stage, the most difficult thing for me as a person, as a human being, was the role I had to assume with respect to Gerardo’s family. He always had a very close relationship with his mother. He had inherited her nobility, her sense of humor. It was a great responsibility for me to try to cover for his absence. And I had to lie, lie a lot, something that is an element that had never been part of my personality before, that I had never even conceived of in my behavior before. I lied to everybody, I had to evade comments, I had to remain silent all the time and it was terrible. In fact, I was never able to do it and, albeit half-heartedly, I was revealing some parts of the truth that I kept hidden from people close to me, like my mother, who from the beginning of our relationship felt great affection for Gerardo.

Of course, all our dreams, illusions, plans, were shattered, shattered. I was left with only two options: either I let the knowledge of Gerardo’s activities crush me, or I could start from the new conditions. Either I threw myself to die, renouncing everything I had lived, everything I had, everything that had made me happy and that I admired, or I began to walk this new path, dragging the sack in which I had thrown everything that had been broken, except love, which was the only thing that remained intact. I decided on the second option and began to adapt my plans to coincide with the great challenges that the new circumstances brought with them.

And from that decision, I set myself goals. The most important thing was to reach the end, even though I never knew when it would be. But I set out to reach that end with the necessary emotional balance to keep me strong and at the same time, to take care of all the fronts I had open, which were to attend to my work responsibilities and to give emotional support to the two families, especially Gerardo’s. I also tried to remain socially active and to maintain good physical and mental health.

During the relentless struggle for the release of the Five, did you ever feel alone?

I always had the extraordinary support of all these people. I also had the valuable support of my family, of the families of the Five, who became one. I had the same support from my friends – who are many and very valuable – and from my work colleagues, who, when Gerardo’s situation became public, helped me even more. It was my colleagues who took up my absences when I participated in the solidarity campaigns in favor of the Five, in the meetings held inside and outside Cuba. They worked hard to keep the work going, taking care of my image as head of the production department. We became a great team.

Of great importance was also the support I received from Dr. Jesús Llanes Querejeta, who was my boss at the time. Professionally I learned a lot from him, as well as from his intelligence, discipline and optimism.

I cannot hide the fact that I had several moments of weakness. In that first stage of silence, which in my opinion was the most difficult, I experienced very hard, sad and painful moments. This is not to say that when our government released the information publicly and officially, my mood was better, but the situation became a little more bearable. There were days, for example, when I didn’t know how I was going to get up and if I did get up I didn’t know how to walk. In public, I always showed great strength, but when I got home and closed the door, that strength left me, and again I saw before me the sky joined to the earth. All the armour I had forged, which I kept outside, disappeared. At those moments, loneliness, nostalgia, uncertainty and longing took hold of me. However, I quickly thought: if out there, in the streets of Cuba and not a few countries in the world, there are thousands of people who are not related to the Five, who probably don’t even know them and are demanding their freedom, how can I, as the wife of one of them, be weak.

That thought forced me to get up, to get going again. And so day after day I searched for resources to cling to when I was alone. Publicly I could not, it was not fair for me to show the slightest sign of weakness, when there was, I repeat, an entire people who, moved by their patriotism, humanism, solidarity, demanded the right of their children to be in their homeland. In reality, I lived through very, very difficult, very sad times, even in some international events, which became repetitive and I almost never saw a light that could be taken as a sign of progress. Many people participating in those events did not understand that we were not telling a story, but that we were living that story, that we were part of it.

How did you deal with the two life sentences unjustly and arbitrarily imposed on Gerardo?

I knew Gerardo’s sentence immediately because kind people present at the trial informed me of it. I think it was a problem of temperament, of character, or that it was already difficult for me to be surprised by something, that could make me collapse, but the truth is that the judge’s verdict did not alarm me. The trial took place in 2001 and the conviction was announced at the end of that year. I already knew, from the guilty verdict on all charges that had initially been handed down, that the sentence would be far from lenient and I prepared myself for life imprisonment, but never for the death penalty. And as I always kept that sentence in mind, I began to analyze what could happen next. Without writing it down, I made a kind of mental timeline, or goal, where I had programmed: I have the strength to get to the sentence, and after that I have to create new handles for myself again. I also had six months between the trial and the final sentence which allowed me to draw up a strategy and the steps I had to follow.

During that time, a few things also happened: between June and December we prepared a video that we respectfully sent to the judge. In that recording we referred, from a humanitarian point of view, to who they were, highlighting their values. During that period, the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers also took place. And a letter to the Americans had also been made public, acknowledging that the Five had never harmed the people of the United States. There were two possibilities: one that they tried to prevent acts like the one that happened in the Twin Towers, or two, that people like them could prepare actions of this kind. In the end, we think that the judge leaned towards the second possibility because of the very strict, harsh and arbitrary verdict she issued. The judge’s behavior allowed me to prepare myself for the tougher, more complex scenario. For me it meant one life sentence or two life sentences because we always agreed that until the last one came out, we would continue our battles, our campaigns.

The conviction did not come as a surprise to me, it was not as shocking as the first news I had received when Gerardo was arrested. In fact, I did not cry that day. I had already prepared myself emotionally to bear it. I was fully aware that both Gerardo and his comrades were innocent of the charges against them; but the sentences were not for them, they were simply aimed at punishing the people of Cuba. It was demonstrated that in every conviction, particularly Gerardo’s, there was a political rather than a legal component.

Sustained by the resolve that I had to go all the way, I adapted my approach to the new reality I was facing. The situation was much more complex and to live up to it our struggle had to be political and public. That would be the way forward. I remember that one day I said to my mother-in-law: it doesn’t matter if I’m 80 years old, I’m going to wait for him, I’m going to receive him mentally healthy. And that’s what I did after the sentence. There was no way and no matter what happened I could weaken, and I started to be stricter with myself, I had to make demands on myself to correspond with the new reality that arose after the trial and I think that was what hurt me the most. My life strategy was to prepare for the future day by day, even though I had no idea when it was going to come. But I still did what I could every day. Gerardo always taught me that: live each day as if it were your last. And that’s what I did, even though I felt that all the sentimental burden I was carrying was hardening me. I got so hard that I reached the last stage of the campaign terribly exhausted from a sentimental point of view. Despite this exhaustion, I found the strength to welcome Gerardo, Ramón and Tony when they finally arrived in their homeland on December 17, 2014.

Despite the fact that Gerardo’s case was the most difficult and tangled to resolve judicially, you decided to become a mother. Why?

The truth is that I had no plans to have a child. Within the life strategy that I had drawn up for myself from 2001 onwards, with the arrest of Gerardo and his companions, and subsequently his two life sentences, with no possibility of visits in our case, of meetings, of the reinforced intention of the U.S. government to keep us separated, I totally dismissed the idea of being a mother, because in addition to all this, there was my biological clock that had to be taken into account.

Gerardo was the one who supported this dream of parenthood the most. So out of respect, because I thought he really deserved it, I changed my mind. Although in reality, it was more of a mutual agreement. He thought that for me as a woman it would be very sad not to become a mother and he felt responsible for it. Whereas I was thinking about the happiness it would bring him, in the midst of his confinement, to have a child.

Also, many people who were part of the campaign urged us to have a child, we were a young couple and therefore we had that right. Several people were sensitized to the idea, in Cuba and abroad. Among those who supported us the most were Vilma and Raúl, creators of a beautiful family. Also Olguita, René’s wife, a very sensitive person and mother. In the meantime, my biological clock was ticking.

It was in those days that Gerardo wrote his letter “To the children yet to be born”. That made me so sensitive that I decided to undergo the process of vitro insemination, which was not even widely performed in Cuba. My eggs were saved so that one day they could be inseminated. In a conversation with U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, who was visiting Havana with his wife, I mentioned to him that Gerardo and I had been deprived of so many rights that we could not even have a child, which is the greatest aspiration of a married couple. He, however, was the father of four children, as well as having grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. Apparently, my words touched him deeply and he became one of the most supportive foreigners. When I was told later that everything was ready to begin the process of assisted reproduction, I thought it was a trick, another mockery of the U.S. government. But no, there she is, our first daughter, our Gema.

From what you have lived, from your own experiences, what do you think of Cuban women?

In that sense, the first thing I need to say is that I feel tremendously proud to be a woman and a Cuban. Very, very proud. In our campaigns for the Cuban Five, both in Cuba and abroad, we have always had the immense support of precisely the women’s umbrella organization. The Federation of Cuban Women, through its eternal president Vilma Espín, opened the doors so that we could proclaim our truth on any stage, even the most complex. In those events and meetings, through our voices, Cuban women spoke.

I believe that women are the backbone of the family and we have achieved this through our lineage. We are strong-willed, unbreakable, courageous and determined to face and overcome any obstacle in order to reach the proposed goal. It is precisely because of the perseverance that characterizes Cuban women that I have managed to reach this point with all my dreams turned into a beautiful reality.

When I speak of Cuban women, the example that comes to mind is that of the world record holder athlete Ana Fidelia Quirot, who was able to overcome her accident and return to competition. In the same way, I think of those women scientists, in general of all those women in the health sector, who remain in the danger zones in the confrontation with COVID. They constantly risk their lives to save the lives of others. A very important role is also played by housewives, who, like all women, with their daily work, with a simple smile, with that healthy and spontaneous vanity, beautify everything around us.

The first Latin American woman to be awarded the Paloma de Plata trophy by the Russian Federation, Adriana Pérez is also the recipient, like the other wives of the Five Heroes of the Republic of Cuba, of the 23 de Agosto Medal and the Order Ana Betancourt. Today, she says with emotion, she is immensely happy because “I have Gerardo and my children by my side. But I would never have been able to reach this moment, which I could not even have dreamed of years ago, if I had not had the support, the great and selfless support of hundreds of thousands of people, who came from the most remote corners of Cuba and the world, fought, as much as we did, for the release and return of the Five. To them, to those who are sadly no longer with us, to my family, friends, neighbors, and work colleagues, my sincere and eternal thanks.

Source: La Jiribilla, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau

They called it “sonic attacks,” “health incidents,” and “Havana syndrome.” In September 2017, the United States government decided to withdraw all nonessential personnel and their families from their country’s embassy in Cuba. This decision was based on alleged inexplicable noises whose causes were unclear. Word spread that about 20 diplomats reported symptoms as varied as dizziness, vertigo, mental confusion, partial deafness, sleep deprivation, and gaps in basic vocabulary, supposedly caused by exposure to persistent sounds of unknown origin in their homes or hotel rooms.

The Cuban government denied over and over again that it was responsible for this strange disease that neither the laws of physics nor dozens of scientists from a wide variety of disciplines could explain. If, according to various versions by Trump’s State Department, the cause were a sonic or microwave weapon, how could the waves have been perceived by certain people gathered in the same place and not others? How could a strong energy emission have had a selective effect? Did someone have James Bond’s magic ray gun? Was it SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion), the secret organization that the most famous spy in British films fought against?

The National Security Archive, an independent nongovernmental research institute, based at George Washington University, recently released the executive summary of a 2018 report from the State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB) after a four-month investigation. The strange attacks against U.S. diplomats in Havana served as a pretext to initiate the Trump administration’s sanctions against Cuba—242 measures in four years applied against a single country, an unprecedented record in U.S. foreign policy.

The report states that CIA agents in Havana were the first to raise the alarm about the strange symptoms. We do not know what these spies were doing. Still, considering the long history of more than 60 years of a dirty war against Cuba, assassination attempts, and fanciful plans against Fidel Castro, such as putting explosives in the Cuban leader’s cigars and poison in his diving suits, the agency surely did not pay for their stay so that they could take daiquiris under a palm tree at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba.

Although exceptional, that is not the most relevant piece of information in the ARB’s investigation, which blames the State Department for “a lack of senior leadership, ineffective communications, and systemic disorganization.” What is remarkable is the recognition that they cannot explain what happened in Havana and could not identify a culprit. The report, delivered on June 7, 2018, to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, states, “We do not know the motive behind these incidents, when they actually commenced, or who did it.”

The oversized dimension of the alleged attacks in Havana was and continues to be the great problem of this saga. Those who believe that something happened because the State Department says so or who maintain that there is a mystery yet to unravel face the enormous difficulty of proving something that did not happen. In science, as in jurisprudence, you can prove what it is, but it is metaphysically impossible to certify what it is not. If someone tries to convince us that 10 angels fit on the tip of a pin, at least one should be documented. Pure and simple logic, except when the intention is to provide “diabolical proof,” that resource from the Inquisition when victims were forced to prove their innocence.

The other great problem with this fantasy is the terrible relationship the Trump administration had with the truth. This president’s lies surpassed a list of more than 20,000 false facts, which ended with the assault on the Capitol building in Washington because he and his followers opposed the verifiable reality of an election that Joe Biden won.

Dr. Robert Bartholomew, professor emeritus of the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, told the Cuban television program “Mesa Redonda” on February 16 that with the so-called “Havana syndrome,” politics have been mixed in an interesting way with science and that the U.S. government covered up this fact to turn it into political football against the Cubans. He added: “This case can be summed up in a single phrase: ‘when you hear the sound of hooves at night, you think they are horses, not zebras.’ But the State Department doctors opted for the most exotic hypothesis from the start: claiming they were unicorns.”

This article was produced by Globetrotter. Rosa Miriam Elizalde is a Cuban journalist and founder of the site Cubadebate. She is vice president of both the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC) and the Latin American Federation of Journalists (FELAP). She has written and co-written several books including Jineteros en la Habana and Our Chavez. She has received the Juan Gualberto Gómez National Prize for Journalism on multiple occasions for her outstanding work. She is currently a weekly columnist for La Jornada of Mexico City.

The Cuban Revolution was just two years old in 1961. Two victories won in that year, 60 years ago, laid crucial foundations for today’s resilient, rebellious and free country just 90 miles from the U.S.: The Literacy Campaign and the 72-hour rout of the  U.S invasion at Playa Giron, more commonly referred to in the U.S. as the Bay of Pigs.

Shortly, within months, Cuba’s Soberana-02 COVID-19 vaccine will conclude final testing. Soberana-02 is one of four vaccine candidates developed by Cuban scientists. This accomplishment is unmatched among small countries emerging from centuries of colonialism, slavery and neocolonial imperialist domination. 

What’s more, Cuba’s internationalist record and projection of producing 100 million vaccine doses — far exceeding the needs of its 11.3 million people —  gives hope to countries in the global South who are left out when rich countries compete to buy up and corner life-saving vaccine production.  Cuba has already signed agreements with Iran, Vietnam, Venezuela and India, said Dr. Vicente Vérez Bencomo, Director General of the Finlay Vaccine and Serum Institute.

Many in the U.S. are incredulous. They ask: “Where will Cuba get the vaccine? From Russia?” How can it be that Cuba is developing and planning production for a vaccine on the same time frame as corporations in the U.S., Britain and Germany?

The U.S. blockade is real

Instead of billions in development funds for “Operation Warp Speed” the U.S. economic war against Cuba was finetuned even during the pandemic to create maximum suffering for the Cuban people. Spare parts for medical devices are withheld by U.S.-owned international corporations fearful of fines. A flight from China refused to land. Venezuelan oil trade with Cuba was interdicted by the U.S. This is more than the “previous administration” policy.  It was the U.S. State Department itself that admitted these cruel intentions. The Mallory-Rubottom State Dept. internal memo April 6, 1960, explained the U.S. strategy still in play today:

“Every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Education is a right

Yet how does Cuba do it? The short answer is socialism. It is Jose Marti’s words that “Homeland is Humanity.” It is Fidel Castro in his defense statement after the attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953 describing the conditions the revolutionaries sought to end:

“In any small European country there are more than 200 technical and industrial arts schools; in Cuba, there are only six such schools, and the boys who graduate have no place to use their skill. That little rural schools are attended by only half of the school age children — barefooted, half-naked, and undernourished — and frequently the teacher must buy necessary materials from his own salary. Is this the way to make a nation great?”

In December 1960, the new revolution announced a great campaign to eliminate illiteracy. At the United Nations, Fidel Castro announced they would do it in one year. By mobilizing young urban volunteers to be teachers, Cuba not only uplifted the dignity of formerly illiterate rural and urban families, but educated the more privileged to the everyday hard  life in the country where they worked as well as taught.

In what was at that time a traditional patriarchal society, young women — more than half of the brigadistas —  gained unheard of independence, overcoming the resistance of their parents. Today Cuban scientists are developing vaccines and using nanotechnology to solve the problems confronting people in Cuba and the world. A June 14, 2018, report in Granma noted that 53 percent of the scientists are women. They are the daughters and granddaughters shaped by the Literacy Campaign  Watch this eight minute trailer of the movie “Maestra,” the women of Cuba’s National Literacy Campaign, to get the feeling of the time.

April 1961 — what was won

In April of the year to end illiteracy, the U.S. launched a direct invasion at Playa Giron, known in the U.S. as the Bay of Pigs. Literacy teachers were targeted,  tortured and killed. In a playbook seen many times since then, bought and paid for U.S. agents attempted to gain a beachhead, falsely  presenting themselves as authentic representatives of the Cuban people to unleash direct U.S. military intervention and reimpose imperial domination. The invasion was quickly defeated..  

But what would a U.S. victory in April 1961 have meant today? Of course, we can point to Haiti and Puerto Rico as examples. But we have actual U.S. documents, too: The 2004 plan written by the Bush administration’s Commission for the Support of Free Cuba.”

Luis A. Montero Cabrera, professor and member of the Cuban Academy of Science, says it best in part three of his series of articles, “Vaccines and Sovereignty.” 

“We Cubans have a very remarkable platform for biomedical production, one might even say extraordinary for a country like ours. An infamous 2004 document from the “Commission for the Support of a Free Cuba” of a previous administration in the U.S. described it as unnecessary and very expensive for such a poor country as ours:  ‘Large sums were also directed to activities such as the development of biotechnology and bioscience centers not appropriate in magnitude and expense for such a fundamentally poor nation, and which have failed to be justified financially.” (p. 256) 

“The only thing to be added to this is that those of us in the South with darker skin ought not to have the luxury of science.  But our biopharmaceutical sector is the child of necessity, of the creative initiative of a lover of knowledge and a true revolutionary, as was our Fidel, and of an educational policy that gives everybody without distinction the right to reach the highest level of human knowledge and to with that knowledge, create.  It was not begun with a specific strategy or goal but became, as it is today, a bastion of the knowledge, science and culture of our country.  It was and is the fruit of revolutionary thinking.” 

It is through the lens of this history that we look toward the vaccinations with Soberana-02 that are coming soon to Cuba, and the world. Soberana, sovereignty, self-determination powered by the people, for the people, not for corporate profit.

As early as April 24, 2020, information that nebulized interferon prevented COVID-19 infection and also produced better outcomes if administered early in COVID-19 infection was known and available in the U.S. 

According to Prensa Latina, as of Jan. 7, 2021, Nasalferon interferon nose drops are being administered to international travelers arriving in Havana and the Cuban families that plan to receive them. International flights from the U.S. resumed in mid-November, causing a sharp spike in COVID-19 infections. 

The Nasalferon drops add to the protocol of a PCR test at the airport, and five days quarantine after arrival plus a negative PCR test, before international visitors depart for Cuban destinations. 

The Saving Lives Campaign initiated by the U.S.-based National Network on Cuba and the Canadian Network on Cuba advocates and organizes for opening medical and scientific collaboration with Cuba. It was formed to respond to the staggering number of pandemic deaths, publishing reliable information and documents.

A document by Cuba’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, “Potential Effect of Interferon and Treatment Recommendations Against COVID-19,” describes in detail the use and effectiveness of nasal interferon. It is available for download at the National Network on Cuba website.

An early report from China shows these results: “Among the 2,944 subjects in our study, 2,415 were included in the low-risk group, including 997 doctors and 1,418 nurses with average ages of 37.38 and 33.56 years, respectively; 529 were included in the high-risk group, including 122 doctors and 407 nurses with average ages of 35.24 and 32.16 years, respectively. 

“The 28-day incidence of COVID-19 was zero in both the high and low-risk groups. The 28-day incidence of new-onset clinical symptoms with negative images for pneumonia was also zero in both the high and low-risk groups. As control, a total of 2,035 medical personnel with confirmed COVID-19 from the same area (Hubei Province) was observed between Jan. 21 to Feb. 23, 2020. No serious adverse events were observed in our trial during the intervention period.”

The unilateral U.S. economic war against Cuba known as the blockade or embargo ruptures mutually beneficial collaboration and exchange between the U.S. and Cuba. Additionally, the racist demonization of China obscured the positive outcome reports by that country’s medical experts. 

On March 24, 2020, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine researchers registered these preliminary results with ClinicalTrials.gov, making it known to U.S. researchers.

We continue to ask: Why has this not been tried in the U.S.? More than 3,000 health care workers have died from COVID-19. The U.S. death toll is nearing half a million people. More than 1 in every 1,000 residents of the U.S. has died. Could it have been prevented? 

It isn’t too late. 

For more information about the Saving Lives Campaign, write to SavingLives [at] US-CubaNormalization.org or this writer at Cheryl [at] NNOC.info.