Gideon Polya, “Cuba’s 50th Anniversary of Freedom. Cuba’s Medical Miracle versus US War, Occupation & Mass Infanticide”, MWC News, 2 January 2009.
Cuba’s 50th Anniversary of Freedom. Cuba’s Medical Miracle versus US War, Occupation & Mass Infanticide
CUBA’S 50 YEARS under Fidel Castro has achieved a Medical Miracle in terms of low infant mortality despite half a century of US violence, threats and illegal sanctions and connected human rights issues in a one-party state.
A fundamental measure of the success or otherwise of social policy is avoidable death (excess death, avoidable mortality, excess mortality, deaths that should not have happened) which is defined as the difference (see between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, non-occupied, sensibly governed country with the same demographics (see: “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).
Using 2003 economic and UN Population Division demographic data summarized in “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, the “annual under-5 infant death rate” was 0.17% for Cuba (per capita income, PCI, $1,170), the same as in the US (PCI, $37,610). In contrast, the “annual under-5 infant death rate” was 0.66% for Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole (under-5 infant population 56.483 million).
This differential infant mortality between Free Cuba and US-dominated Latin America corresponding to 0.66 - 0.17 = 0.49 deaths per 100 under-5 year old infants each year can be seen to have amounted to 0.49 avoidable deaths x 56,483,000 under-5 infants /100 = 276,767 i.e. about 277,000 avoidable under-5 Latin American deaths EACH YEAR due to the absence of Cuban-style medical, female literacy and other good governance programs. A heavy price for Latin American children, mothers and fathers to pay for American-style “freedom” and US hegemony.
However those Latin American countries actually invaded by US forces in the last half century paid a heavier price than most - thus the 2003 “annual under-5 year old death rate”, while only 0.17% for Cuba and the USA was 0.5% (Panama), 0.88% (Dominican Republic), and 2.68% (Occupied Haiti).
Similarly, those Latin American countries subject to US-complicit military coups, military régimes, military violence, civil wars, genocide and/or death squads also fared badly, with the 2003 “annual under-5 infant death rate” being 0.36% (Argentina), 0.67% (Brazil), 0.27% (Chile), 0.43% (Columbia), 0.57% (Ecuador), 0.75% (El Salvador), 1.16% (Guatemala), 0.78% (Honduras) and 0.98% (Nicaragua).
It has been estimated in “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” that post-1950 possession of Cuban-style medical related systems would have saved 36 million under-5 year old infant lives in US-dominated Latin America and Caribbean – a horrible testament to evil American contempt for the lives of the most innocent of its imperial subjects.
For a passionate excoriation of US violence and accompanying American LYING about US violence in Latin America and indeed across the World to this day see “Art, Truth and Politics”, the 2005 Literature Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech of the late UK playwright Harold Pinter (see: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html ) , QUOTE: “Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued - or beaten to death - the same thing - and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer. The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America's view of its role in the world, both then and now … The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven. Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.” END QUOTE.
For detailed histories of these vile US interventions see William Blum’s best-selling book “Rogue State” and my summations in “Body Count. Avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ). Reproduced below from the latter book is a succinct summation of 1990-2005 avoidable deaths in all countries (excluding Germany and Japan) for which the US was a major Occupier in the post-1945 era (m= million; * = another major Occupier was also involved; data is presented as a ratio of 1990-2005 avoidable deaths/2005population for the country concerned as well as for the US and expressed as a percentage).
US [8.455m/300.038m = 2.8%] - Afghanistan* [16.609m/25.971m = 64.0%], Cambodia* [5.852m/14.825m = 39.5%], Dominican Republic [0.806m/8.998m = 9.0%], Federated States of Micronesia [0.016m/0.111m = 14.4%], Greece* [0.027m/10.978m = 0.2%], Grenada* [0.018m/0.121m = 14.9%], Guam [0.005m/0.168m = 3.0%], Haiti* [4.089m/8.549m = 47.9%], Iraq* [5.283m/26.555m = 19.9%], Korea* [7.958m/71.058m = 11.2%], Laos* [2.653m/5.918m = 44.8%], Panama [0.172m/3.235m = 5.3%], Philippines [9.080m/82.809m = 11.0%], Puerto Rico [0.039m/3.915m = 1.0%], Somalia* [5.568m/10.742m = 51.8%], US Virgin Islands [0.003m/0.113m = 2.4%], Vietnam* [24.015m/83.585m = 28.7%], total = 82.193m/357.651m = 23.0% .
It should be noted that for impoverished Third World countries - almost invariably the targets of the courageous Americans who even then prefer to kill mostly Indigenous Women and Children at a distance with napalm, phosphorus, cluster bombs, other bombs and rockets - the “under-5 infant deaths” are numerically about 0.7 of the total avoidable deaths (see “Layperson’s guide to counting Iraq deaths” in MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).
Cuba should indeed celebrate FIFTY YEARS free of US surrogate dictatorship, violence and passive mass infanticide. Decent humanity fervently wishes the same liberation from genocidal US or US surrogate control of Occupied Haiti, Occupied Somalia, Occupied Diego Garcia, Occupied Palestine, Occupied Syria, Occupied Iraq, Occupied Afghanistan and the US robot-bombed and invaded North West Provinces of Pakistan.
Anti-racist, humanitarian writers, such as those of MWC News, plead that “thou shalt not kill children” either actively or passively (see “Children of Lesser God” on MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19454/42/ ). Cuba under Fidel Castro has shown the World how an impoverished, threatened country can save the lives of its most vulnerable people – its children.
Viva Cuba!
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