Botswana finds itself in a diplomatic quandary as the American Department of State condemns Cuba’s medical mission with the Botswana government as a form of modern-day slavery.
The US State Department’s “2021 Trafficking in Persons Report” claims that Botswana has become an international trafficking hub citing Cuban medical personnel sent by their government to work for the Botswana government.
The scathing report comes a few months after two US senators condemned Cuba’s medical mission of sending doctors around the world as a form of modern slavery and asked former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to engage with US allies to inform them of Havana’s ‘forced labour practices.
In a letter to Pompeo, former senators Marco Rubio (Republican) and Bob Menendez (Democrat) expressed concern at the Cuban government’s practice of sending doctors abroad – because most of their earnings go to the government in Havana.
The two senators last year June introduced legislation to require the State Department to publish a list of countries that receive doctors from Cuba through its medical program, and to consider that as a factor in its annual Trafficking in Persons report.
Cuba uses its respected health service to generate major export earnings by sending tens of thousands of health workers to dozens of countries. The senators claimed that the practice amounts to human trafficking and modern slavery.
‘We respectfully request that you direct the U.S. Embassies in each of these countries to deliver a demarche to host government officials to inform them about the Cuban regime’s forced labour practices,’ the letter added.
The Sunday Standard was not able to establish if the American Government has officially communicated its complaints to the Botswana government. However, in line with the new legislation, the US State Department’s “2021 Trafficking in Persons” country report lists Botswana among countries that receive doctors from Cuba through its medical program, and cited this as a factor in its annual Trafficking in Persons report.
“Cuban medical personnel working in Botswana may have been forced to work by the Cuban government”, states the report.
The American senators claimed that, “the Cuban regime’s so-called ‘foreign medical missions’ have created an international human trafficking scheme through which Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel have perfected the art of exploitation and illegal enrichment. As a lifeline for the Communist regime, reports have noted that these ‘medical missions’ withhold a substantial portion of the Cuban doctors’ and medical personnel’s wages. Through deplorable working conditions, confiscation of legal identification and unfair compensation, these ‘missions’ constitute a form of forced labour and modern-day slavery.”
The Cuban medical mission to Botswana has always been a diplomatic hot potato as Botswana has been caught between the Cuban government and Cuban doctors who defected while in Botswana, claiming the mission was a system of oppression that is heavy on ideology and bogus solidarity towards host countries. An advocacy group called Cuban Prisoners Defenders together with a political group, the Cuban Patriotic Union have filed a complaint before the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the program.
The lawsuit before the ICC includes public testimony from 64 doctors in the program and 46 others who spoke privately. The suit in which one of the plaintiffs is a Cuban doctor who defected while in Botswana accuses former president Raul Castro and the current president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, of crimes against humanity for running a program that acts as a form of modern slavery.
