Colombian Vice President refuses to call Cuba a dictatorship and praises: ‘Sends doctors, not weapons’
Colombia’s Vice President Francia Márquez refused to classify Cuba as a dictatorship and praised its healthcare system.
The statements are part of an interview with Semana magazine, published on Tuesday (14).
“You can talk all you want but can’t cover the sun with a sieve. While other countries send troops and weapons to many nations, Cuba sends doctors, and this cannot be hidden.”
“A country that has suffered a blockade for more than 60 years sends doctors to other nations,” said Márquez.
In a lawsuit against the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in the US courts, Cuban doctors have argued that the organization supports human trafficking and the exploitation of forced labor by intermediating the sending of these professionals abroad by the Castro regime.
In the interview with Semana, Márquez refrained when asked if Cuba is a dictatorship.
“But why? That is, it has been a dictatorship that suffers a blockade, a dictatorship, as you say, but it doesn’t send weapons [to other countries]. It sends doctors. Isn’t that admirable?” she replied.
“You put the qualifier [dictatorship], I don’t put it that way […]. I respect the autonomy of each people and sovereignty of each people. Each people decides how to organize itself politically,” Gustavo Petro’s vice president added.
The journalist insisted and cited that Fidel Castro’s extended time in power (49 years) proved that Cuba is a dictatorship.
Márquez then argued that although Colombia has elections, “inequality is the greatest in the world…the dictatorship and democracy of a country are not only measured by the electoral [side],” but also “by social transformations, and the guarantee of social rights.”
“I admire the [Cuban] health system, which supported the professionalization, with blockade and everything, of thousands of citizens, including Colombians.”
“Because more than a thousand graduated there; they had no opportunity in our nation and our country.”
“They got it in another nation, the target of a blockade or, as you say, a dictatorship,” Márquez claimed.
With information from Gazeta do Povo
More: Colombia news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Read More from The Rio Times