Fidel Castro Says Solidarity Can Win Freedom

Havana, Aug 21 (AIN) Cuban President Fidel Castro said that freedom can only be won through solidarity.

In his closing address at the graduation of 1,610 doctors from the Havana-based Latin American School of Medicine, President Castro underscored the humanism of the first group of graduates from that institution and noted that such a graduation, a dream seven years ago, is today’s proof of the capacity of human beings when they commit themselves to reach the highest goals. “It is prize for those of us who believe that a better world can be achieved,” said the leader.

Fidel Castro recalled that Cuba offered to send a medical contingent to Central America in the wake of the devastation left by hurricane Mitch in 1998. He linked that idea with the creation of the Latin American School of Medicine, designed to progressively replace Cuban doctors serving in various parts of the continent with physicians native to those countries.

President Castro recalled the difficult situation faced by higher education in Cuba before 1959 and how the bloody Fulgencio Batista dictatorship unleashed its repression and closed schools, including the only medical school in the country.

Most graduates were youths from well-to-do families and half of the doctors left the country as part of the brain drain encouraged by the United States, said Fidel Castro, who explained that only 3,000 doctors stayed in Cuba along with a small group of medical professors.

Fidel recalled the first graduation of doctors in post-revolutionary Cuba on November 14, 1965 – when 400 youths concluded their studies. He also referred to efforts of the Revolution aimed at training personnel and developing medical sciences.

He cited the figures on doctors who graduated after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution: 4,907 doctors from 1960 to 1969; 9,410 from 1970-79; 22,490 from 1980-89; 37,841 from 1990 to 1999 and 9,334 from 2000 to 2004 – a total figure of 83,982 physicians, explained Castro, adding that out of that sum, 1,612 were graduates from other countries.

If one adds to that the number of Cuban doctors who will graduate this year, said the president, the figure will go up to 85,887. He said that student enrolment in the 2004-2005 school year reached 28,071 in medicine; 2,758 in dentistry; 19,530 in nursing and 28,400 in medical-related technology.

At present more than 12,000 youths from 83 countries studying medicine in Cuba. Out of these, 1,500 are from South America, 3,244 from Central America, 489 from Mexico and North America, including 65 from the United States and two from Puerto Rico. Some 1,039 students come from Caribbean nations, 777 from Sub-Saharan Africa, 42 from Northern Africa and the Middle East, 61 from Asia and two from Europe.

As for those who graduated on Saturday, the Cuban President explained that 495 are from South America, 771 from Central America, 343 from the Caribbean and one from the United States. He said that some day more US students will come to study in Cuba since in that country there are tens of millions of people who have no guarantee to medical assistance.

In his address, the Cuban President explained Cuba and Venezuela’s joint plans to train medical personnel and said that Latin American and Caribbean youths wishing to study medicine but who lack the resources to do so can apply for scholarships.

Fidel noted that the training of a single doctor in the United States costs at least $300,000, emphasizing the magnitude of Cuba’s contribution to the Third World by its training 12,000 doctors.

Venezuela and Cuba together will be able to contribute $60 billion to the Third World over the next 10 years in terms of the number of doctors trained, said President Castro.

Referring to a proposition made by US President George Bush to contribute $15 billion to the HIV/Aids struggle in Africa, Fidel recalled that such diseases can not be fought from a five-star hotel, but from the villages. He posed the question as to how many professionals trained in wealthy countries are willing to work at villages, forests and mountains?

Finally, Fidel said, those who develop weapons of mass destruction and devastate whole cities, killing hundreds of thousands in minutes, and sentencing hundreds of thousands of people to prolonged agony can not be called humanistic.