To Cuba and back

Thirteen Maine teachers and health workers returned April 21 after a week spent in eastern Cuba on a study tour. They were there looking at schools, clinics, hospitals and services for children, in order to find out about what happens to egalitarian ideals when social services are provided under conditions of chronic scarcity.

The Cuban people whom the travelers met seemed resourceful, highly educated, hospitable and generous. The Cuban children appeared healthy and full of enthusiasm and self-confidence. The talent of the musicians and dancers in a provincial elementary school for the performing arts, for example, was extraordinary. Cuban teachers and students may be reduced to the bare essentials in regard to supplies and comforts, but all schools visited by the group have new computers in place, except for a tiny school attended by four students high up in the mountains.

Last year, Cuba opened up four schools, each one for 2,000 social-worker technicians, and each built in six months. The Maine travelers visited two of them. The reason for the schools is said to have been the finding that many teen-agers and young adults in Cuba, some of them very poor, have reduced prospects for higher education and jobs. On being recruited, they are told that their troubles are the result of society’s problems. Their course of training lasts one year, and then they will return home to begin working to “fix society” – in the process earning an adequate salary. While working and earning, they will be able to complete a university education at home, even if it takes many years.

The Maine visitors noted that hospitals and clinics have few frills. Light bulbs, paper materials and bed sheets, for example, are in short supply. But physicians do have access to essential medical equipment and medications, purchased at extra expense in Europe, or manufactured in Cuba, in order to circumvent the U.S. embargo. The Maine delegation, all but one of them women, appreciated the fact that at the general hospital in Holguin, each department head, except one, is a woman, as are two-thirds of a medical staff of 150 physicians and surgeons. They noted the anomaly of new CT scanners inside the hospital, made in Santiago, and horse drawn wagons out on the street, used as taxis.

The Cuban people seem to be pragmatic and willing to make adjustments. For example, the family doctor program, now the backbone of Cuba’s system for primary health care, 15 years ago took over much of the work of the so-called polyclinics, the earlier source of first contact medical care. Also, remarkable changes have taken place during the past 10 years in Cuban agriculture. A changeover to agricultural cooperatives and private systems of land usage has contributed to increased food production and improved distribution.

Returning home, many of the teachers and health workers were looking at their own society from a new perspective. That outcome may suggest why Cuba is viewed with alarm by U.S. orthodoxy – the threat it poses of a good example. And Washington did its best to have the Maine study tour to Cuba die an early death.

The authorization under which the Maine delegation was traveling to Cuba was that provided by a section of the embargo laws designated as general licensure. Three days before the trip’s departure, a representative of the Treasury Department telephoned the travel agency making arrangements for the trip – operating under a Treasury Department license – that the Maine travelers might not be legal. The group supposedly lacked true “re-searchers.” (Travel to Cuba for the purpose of study and research relating to one’s professional work has long been viewed as a legitimate category for travel to Cuba.) The agency responded by dropping out, leaving 25 Maine people high and dry. Whether or not a licensed provider is required for legal travel to Cuba by individuals remains unclear. But fearful of legal repercussions, twelve people stayed home, thereby losing their nonrefundable airfare. The rest went on to Cuba.

Let Cuba Live, a Maine-based Cuba solidarity organization, to which the author belongs, unleashed a publicity campaign, and the story of the trip and of harassment on the part of the U.S. government spread far and wide. In addition, the day before the group’s departure to Cuba, aides to Rep. John Baldacci sought clarification from the Treasury Department, even securing a measure of reassurance that the trip did indeed satisfy legal requirements. The 13 returned travelers crossed back into the United States on April 21 without interference from border officials.

Two months previously, the Treasury Department, checking the Web site of Let Cuba Live, had seen a description of the trip put there to recruit participants. The present writer, who organized the trip, received a letter from that department suggesting that he should be using a travel service provider to make arrangements for legal travel to Cuba. With great difficulty, another licensed travel service provider was found to finish making trip arrangements. Charles Bishop of the Treasury Department then waited until three days prior to the time of departure to threaten that “TSP.” The timing was too short for the group to make alternative arrangements, but just right to cause maximum frustration and worry.

Last summer, Let Cuba Live intentionally violated embargo laws by not obtaining a license to send medical supplies to Cuba. The result was a fracas at the international border at Coburn Gore, Maine. This time, every effort had been made to assure the legality of a trip to Cuba for health workers and teachers. From the point of view of the trip facilitator, the reward for such good behavior is not yet obvious. However, from the point of view of 13 people who went on to Cuba and 12 more who stayed home the restrictions on travel to our island neighbor are irrational, wrong and irritating.

Dr. Tom Whitney is a pediatrician from South Paris.