Barrio Adentro Clinic in Venezuela -- Image taken from: http://paulagiraud.blogspot.com/
"You must turn in your passport!" So they told him on arriving in Caracas, to prevent him from making it to the border and deserting. In the same airport they read him the rules: "You cannot say that you are Cuban, you can't walk down the street in your medical clothes, and it's best to avoid interacting with Venezuelans." Days later he understood that his mission was a political one, because more than curing some heart problem or lung infection, he was supposed to examine consciences, probe voting intentions.
In Venezuela he also came across the corruption of some of those leading the Barrio Adentro Project. The "shrewd ones" here become the "scoundrels" there, grabbing power, influence, money, and even pressuring the female doctors and nurses who travel alone to become their concubines. They placed him together with six colleagues in a cramped room and warned them that if they were to die -- victims of all the violence out there -- they would be listed as deserters. But it didn't depress him. At the end of the day he was only 28 and this was his first time escaping from parental protection, the extreme apathy of his neighborhood, and the shortages in the hospital where he worked.
A month after arriving, they gave him an identity card, telling him that with it he could vote in the upcoming elections. At a quick meeting someone spoke about the hard blow it would be to Cuba to lose such an important ally in Latin America. "You are soldiers of the fatherland," they shouted at them, and as such, "you must guarantee that the red tide prevails at the polls."
The days when he thought he would save lives or relieve suffering are long gone. He just wants to go home, return to the protection of his family, tell his friends the truth, but for now he can't. Beforehand, he must stand in line at the polls, show his support for the Venezuelan Socialist Party, hit the screen with his thumb as a sign of agreement. He counts the days until the last Sunday in September, thinking that after that he can go home.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Translating Cuba is a new compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban bloggers in English.
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http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=350054&CategoryId=10717
Around 500 Cuban doctors have defected to the United States while serving on aid missions in Venezuela.
The doctors serving in those countries are essentially under surveillance all the time and any change in their plans not consistent with the orders given from Havana invariably lead to the involvement of police or paramilitary security forces. It is no wonder that many physicians in such missions defect to freedom. About 6,000 health workers, many of them physicians, have left Cuba in the last eight years.
Wanna know which nations are on the side of the angels and which are not? Determine which nations the citizens are attempting to emigrate from and which they are trying to immigrate to.
That cuts threw mountains of political discourse like a hot knife through warm butter.
If Chavez is so wonderful why don't you come and live here. Maybe we can even find a way to have you blacklisted so you can enjoy the whole touristic experience of being denied fundamental rights and services. Then you can go back to your hellish capitalist United States... poor you... Agh! If there's on thing worst than the "ugly gringo" is the arrogant academic french-wannabes who think that anyone who doesn't like US capitalism must be good.
Chávez made of Venezuela a Cuban colony. He is a traitor and when this is finished he should be be hanged. Unfortunately Venezuela was the first country in the world to abolish death penalty about 150 years ago (that made us such a civilized society Caracas exceeds 200 murders per 100.000 each year with less than 0.2 murder cases have caused arrests).
Signature: an angry afrovenezuelan, from a family who became prosperous and educated thanks to democracy and then lost everything thanks to your hero... of course, everything but education: enough to understand that Communism is as bad as Nazism.
I also find your claim to be the first Venezuelan to marry an Iranian to be highly suspicious
Yet the leftists claim Chavez's VZ is a democracy.
that its resources must be used to help its poor, rather than
multinationals, as a dictatorship would rather believe the most
crazy tales and theories rather than the facts.
The news reports of human rights abuses and a deteriorating economy have come from many different sources with many different political viewpoints in many different countries. It beggars belief that they are all deluded or part of some grand conspiracy to undermine Chavez.
By the way, are you from Venezuela or have you lived there for a reasonable amount of time? It is always good to know that comments are backed up with first hand experience which I assume is your case.