From: jbarth@ep.ieee.org (Jeremy Barth)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: Human Rights in Cuba
Date: 22 Dec 92 18:27:51 GMT
Reply-To: jbarth@ep.ieee.org
Organization: IEEE, New York, NY



HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LEGITIMACY OF A SOCIAL SYSTEM

Further observations on beating up dissidents, life
expectancy, and other matters.


Greetings Edelmiro,

I brought up healthcare not to raise a "smokescreen" or to
serve as an "apologist" for Castro.  As I stated clearly,

>> Of course it is wrong to beat up political dissidents.  No decent
>> person would disagree with that sentiment.  Human rights groups
>> have regularly documented and condemned human rights violoations
>> in Cuba.  As Gilberto points out, however, you'd likely be
>> "desaparecido y muerto" in many other countries.

You ask:

	> Why do they need to invoke other atrocities if one wrong 
	> does not make a right?

Both of us condemn violence against dissidents.  But if you wish
to imply that Cuba is far worse than any other country, I repeat:

	>> As Gilberto points out, however, you'd likely be
	>> "desaparecido y muerto" in many other countries

This is not by any stretch of the imagination a "justification" for
Cuba's security forces beating up a dissident.  It is *you* who
choose selectively, singling out Cuba for beating up dissidents, when 
any number of Central and Latin American democracies regularly *kill*
people.  Where are you for the teachers and nurses who were raped
and murdered by death squads in El Salvador?

You claim that death squads are running around Cuba:

	> Jeremy, my posting had nothing to do with how "good" the 
	> Cuban government was, it had to to with the government 
	> sponsored death squads that are roaming the streets of 
	> havanna ....

Death squads in Havana?  Really?  In what official source has
your information been published?  The activities of Salvadoran
death squads have been regularly reported by the New York Times,
Newsweek, Time, Amnesty International, and many other 
organizations.  I expect your sources are equally impeccable.

	> ... these facist mobs, the friends of Castro on this net, 
	> including yourself

Geez, first they're Communist, now they're Fascist.  History 101
will tell you the two social systems are rather different.

As to my being a "friend of Castro," I never said anything of 
the sort.  It's something you are making up out of thin air.  
I believe Castro served his historical role and should have retired 
from politics years ago.  So I am certainly not a "friend of Castro," 
any more than you are a "friend of Jorge Mas Canosa" (unless you happen
to be, in which case my analogy is wrong).  I am critical of
human rights abuses wherever they occur, whether in Cuba, El 
Salvador, or  the US.  My definition of human rights, however, 
is far more inclusive than yours.


Let me state clearly where our differences lie:  you say that human
rights abuses exist in Cuba.  I completely agree with you -- and I
agree they are systematic and deserving of strong condemnation.
But they also exist in the US -- in case you haven't noticed,
black men are beaten up by racist cops every day in some US cityr.  
It's pretty systematic -- and officially condoned.
Just replay any of Los Angeles police chief Darryl Gates's news 
conferences regarding his views on the Rodney King beating case.  

Where we differ is that you deny *any* legitimacy to the Cuban social
and political system.  By focussing on health care, I am not trying
to "avoid" the issues you have raised -- as I've already stated, no
decent person condones the beating of unarmed political dissidents. 
I focus on health as an extension of your own line of argumentation,
namely taking human rights as a measure of the legitimacy of a social
system.


HEALTH AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT

By the standard of health as a basic human right, Cuba outdoes all
the rest of Latin America, as well as the US in certain categories. 
Taking health and the status of women, here are some critical
indicators from selected countries (the US, two other First World
countries, and several Central and South American nations.  Sources:
the World Bank's "World Development Report", UNICEF's "State of the
World's Children", UNESCO's "Statistical Yearbook," and the World
Health Organization's "Population and Vital Statistics" reports
between 1988 and 1991.  (Of course, these statistics are all in the
past.  Now that the Torricelli bill has become law, it's anyone's
guess how far Cuba will drop).  

- Life expectancy (overall, men and women): 

	Japan	     78 years
	Sweden	     77
	Cuba	     76 
	US	     75
	Chile 	     72
	Argentina    71
	Mexico	     69
	Brazil	     65
	Honduras     64
	El Salvador  63
  	Guatemala    62
	Peru	     62

This is evidence that Cuba is a failed society?

- Cuba has eliminated many preventable contagious diseases
  (contrast this to almost any other Third World country):

        DISEASE        DATE OF ERADICATION

	polio	     	   1963
	malaria	       	   1968
	infantile tetanus  1973
	human rabies       1977
	diphtheria         1980

More evidence that Cuba is a failed society?

- Number of measles cases reported in 1990:

	United States	25,000
	Cuba	     	     0

- Abortion is free, safe, and available on demand.  Women die
  throughout the world from septic abortions -- Cuba has
  eliminated this almost entirely.


You respond to my statement:

>>1.  Pregnant women are guaranteed pre-natal care and close
>>    to 100% get it.

with:
 
        > But they can't even get the milk they need since there
        > is practically no milk production in the country.  So
        > the pre-natal care must certainly be theoretical
        > (it they indeed get it).

If your statement is valid, how do you explain the following 
infant mortality statistics?  (per 1000 live births):

	Japan	         5
	Sweden	         6
	US (overall)    10.1
	Cuba	        10.7
	US (blacks)     18
	Chile 	        20
	Argentina       31
	Mexico	        46
	El Salvador     57
        Guatemala       57
	Brazil	        61
        Honduras        68
	Peru	        86
		        
More evidence that Cuba is a failed society?

I believe these numbers speak for themselves.  However, I'll
make it clearer for those who can't, or don't want, to make 
the connection.

What do these numbers mean?  They mean that Cuban health is
dramatically better than it was before 1959 and has far outpaced
improvements in public health elsewhere in the region.  Not only 
does Cuba far exceed the rest of Latin America, it frequently 
matches or exceeds First World standards (i.e. the United 
States).  Health is a basic human right, and therefore Cuba
is outdoing the rest of Latin America in providing this
basic human right to its citizens.  You state:

	> What are you talking about, there is nothing "modern" 
	> in Cuban hospitals.  As with trasportation, medical 
	> technology frozin in time with Castro's 
	> "revolution" and the only "modernity" came from the 
	> now defunct Soviety Union and we all how how "modern" 
	> that country is.

Were your claim about the backwardness of Cuban health even remotely
true, it would have shown up in the epidemiology long ago.  Where
are the low birthweight babies who didn't get milk?  Where is the
declining fertility rate from malnourished pregnant women?  You have to
have facts to back up your arguments.  You claim that my
 
        "... propaganda says ..."
 
My "propaganda" is obtained from official publications of the World
Health Organization, the World Bank, the Pan American Health
Organization, UNESCO, and UNICEF directly contradict your
characterization.  If you possess information unknown to these
organizations, perhaps you should make it known to them.


Strangely,  we actually have a small amount of common ground:

	> And as far as the excellent access to
	> medical care, it is ironic that in a country where 
	> the private possesion of aspirin is illegal, you are talking 
	> about "access".  Moreover, it is a well known fact that party 
	> bosses have access to military hospitals while the rest
	> of the population qets the ax at some local butcher shop.  

Let's talk about these party bosses for a minute.  Like you, I feel
that it's wrong for certain people to have access to the highest
quality health care when others don't.  But surely the US is no
paragon of equitable access to health care.  We have a "fee-for-service"
system where money, rather than party connections, is the factor
that divides society.  Let's apply your statement to the US health care
system, changing a couple of phrases:  change "party bosses" to "wealthy 
white men" and "military hospitals" to "the highest quality private 
medicine" and you have:

	"Moreover, it is a well known fact that wealthy white men
	 have access to the highest quality private medicine"

Using commutative logic, we have come up with a most interesting
result -- both Cuba and the US appear to have inequities in their
health care systems.  Both societies are imperfect -- what a shocking
result.  Does this mean that neither has any legitimacy in the eyes
of its people?  

Just as I am against party bosses having special privileges, I am also 
against wealthy white men having the best when tens of millions of Americans 
have no health insurance of any kind and are bankrupted by any serious illness.  

 
WHY IS HEALTH IMPORTANT?  WHO CARES?

Why do I spend so much time on health?  Because it is the ultimate
window on to a society.  A society where health indicators are
declining is failing its people.  Conversely, one that is raising
them is doing something right.  How healthy people are deflates a lot
of bogus claims, both by right and leftwing governments.  For
example, the Soviet Union experienced a *decline* in life expectancy
between 1964 (the beginning of Brezhnev's rule) and the mid-1980's,
the so-called "years of stagnation."  

	> Now that you talk about it, the problem with health was not 
	> access. it was about the costs provoked by inescrupulous 
	> beauroctrats.  Other than the costly nature of the system 
	> (to the government), we have the best system in the world.

You may believe we have the best health care system in the world
but President-elect Clinton has called it a system in crisis.
Thiry-seven million people have no health insurance of any kind.
Most of the unemployed have no medical insurance because insurance
is based on your job.  I don't know what your "97%" access means:  
sure you have "access" to health care in the US, you just have
to pay an enormous amount for it -- not difficult if you're
rich, not so great if you're middle-class or poor.

Also, the US is well behind other countries in some of the most
basic health indicators, such as infant mortality.  We rank
somewhere around 18th in the world.  This is 

	"... the best system in the world"  

and we're not even in the top 10 in infant mortality?!  Give me a break.  

As Bill Clinton says, "We can do better than that."


Jeremy