Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves says his government is gathering information requested by US authorities on Cuban medical workers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, even as he insists that they are not victims of human trafficking as the Donald Trump administration claims.
“All the data are being gathered — relevant data — and would be sent to our friends in the United States State Department. We do not have any human trafficking or exploitation of Cuban professionals in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And the facts will show all of this,” Gonsalves said on his weekly show on NBC Radio.
The United States has announced it intends to revoke the visas of foreign government officials whose countries employ Cuban doctors and nurses.
US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio said Washington was announcing “the expansion of an existing Cuba-related visa restriction policy that targets forced labour linked to the Cuban labour export programme.
“This expanded policy applies to current or former Cuban government officials, and other individuals, including foreign government officials, who are believed to be responsible for, or involved in, the Cuban labour export programme, particularly Cuba’s overseas medical missions”.
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who left Cuba in pursuit of the American dream, said in the statement posted on the US Department of State’s website, that the new policy also applies to the immediate family of those people supporting the Cuban programme.
However, Gonsalves said SVG has “a modern, progressive regime of labour laws, and these laws encompass, too, our obligations under the international conventions to which we have subscribed, and we take all of these obligations very seriously.
“And I am hopeful that those who have wrong information, mistaken information, would dispassionately look at the facts and not be unduly influenced by any political or ideological considerations.”
Gonsalves said he was “absolutely sure” that the situation was the same in all the Caribbean islands where Cuba medical professionals work.
“It’s a matter on which I may lay out all the facts to the people of St. Vincent, the Caribbean and the world. But our friends in the United States of America have engaged us, and we will provide all the information which is within our purview.”
He said the Cuban professionals in SVG are “happy to be here. They enter the programme voluntarily. They can leave it anytime.”
He reiterated that their compensation package is equivalent to, or in some cases, better than people in comparable circumstances or grades in the Public Service.
“Their compensation package includes a wage, a salary, but also the entire package and put together so that it doesn’t distort what we pay other people.”
He said the compensation package also includes furnished accommodation.
“We pay for the light, the water, the internet, transportation to and from the place of their home to their place of work; free medical treatment, if anything happens to any of them. They have their annual holidays, the month holidays, we pay their passage to Cuba and back, too.
“How is this forced? We pay for you at the start and at the end. You work no more than 40 hours a week, no more than eight hours a day.”
He said that as is the case with all doctors, the Cubans would be called out to work if there are emergencies, adding that they work exclusively for the state for eight hours a day.
“But they’re permitted to practice privately; … many of them do, and that money is their money,” the prime minister said.
“Does anybody think that St. Vincent and the Grenadines will be party to forced labour? Anybody reasonably?” he said, adding, “There’s a convention which you subscribe to”.
He said most of the Cubans working in the public sector in SVG are doctors, but a few work in the ministries of transport and works and agriculture and fisheries.
“Occasionally, you may have for a short term, somebody may come into culture, somebody may come at [the Ministry of] Education,” he said, adding that Cubans are not the only people who come to SVG on overseas missions.
“This is one, a mission where persons are paid. By the way, even while they are paid here in the way in which I’ve just indicated, they get their salaries in Cuba; it’s waiting there for them in Cuban pesos in their bank account.”
He said the Cuban workers in SVG are free to travel within the country adding that “when they finish their tour of duty, they are free.
“They can sever their link with the employment in Cuba and seek employment here. And some of them are employed by the state here, not being part of the brigade.”
The prime minister said there are Cubans working in the private sector in SVG who were recruited from Cuba.
“I understand the rule is that to maintain their Cuban connection, they have to go back once every two years, I think the rule is.
“.. our friends in the United States of America are mistaken on this matter. Now I have just given you a synopsis so that persons can reflect and cogitate on what I’ve said here.”
Reparations is a must for the Cuban people who worked on the airport and in healthcare in Vincy little or no money. The data could be doctored for all you know.
I have a very bad gut feeling about you. Every time I see your face or read what you do or have said it just upsets me. I can’t help it.