Key Messages to World from Cuba’s Medical Miracle in 50 years of Freedom from Genocidal US Hegemony

This week CUBA has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fidel Castro-led Cuban Revolution that kicked out the US-backed Batista dictatorship.

The lessons that Free Cuba gives to the World are that a medical miracle follows from good governance, good primary health care and high literacy (especially high female literacy) – but to achieve those things it is FIRST necessary to throw out anti-humanitarian US puppets that put the interests of themselves, their cronies and of their foreign backers before those of the People (for a detailed analysis see “Cuba’s 50th Anniversary of Freedom. Cuba’s Medical Miracle versus US War, Occupation & Mass Infanticide “: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/276... ).

Thus Cuba effectively won its independence from the US 50 years ago in 1959 by overthrowing the US-backed Batista dictatorship - shortly before most of Africa became independent from racist, genocidal European colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s.

Yet by 2003 the “annual under-5 infant death rate” was 0.17% in Cuba (the same as in the US) whereas it was 0.16% (Overseas Europe i.e. North America, Australasia and Apartheid Israel), 0.12% (Western Europe), 0.38% (Eastern Europe), 0.66% (Latin America and the Caribbean),0.75% (East Asia), 2.03% (Central Asia, Turkey and Iran), 1.33% (Arab North Africa and Middle east), 1.04% (South East Asia), 1.59% (Pacific), 1.99% (South Asia), 3.90% (non-Arab Africa), 0.19% (for European countries), 1.88% (for non-European countries) and 1.71% (for the World as a whole)(see: “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).

If we compare Cuba with similarly “technically advanced but impoverished” South Asian countries we see that Cuba has abolished illiteracy (literacy 97%) whereas the literacy percentage is only 40% (Bangladesh), 57% (India), 43% (Pakistan) and 92% (Sri Lanka) (2003 figures); Cuba gives good governance and excellent primary health care (that is the envy of the world) whereas governance and public health are disasters in South Asia; and Cuba threw off US hegemony whereas BOTH India and Pakistan are now heavily involved with the racist Zionist (RZ)-linked US in intelligence and military affairs i.e. with the country, the USA, that most seriously threatens BOTH over its remorseless desire for global resources and the hegemony that is the pre-requisite for resource dominance.

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/ ).

In order to take population into account in comparing the performance of countries, one can express “avoidable mortality” as a percentage of the current population. Thus in 2003 the “2003 avoidable mortality”/2003 population percentage was ZERO for US-free Cuba but 0.43% (Bangladesh), 0.35% (India), 0.56% (Pakistan) and ZERO (0%) for Sri Lanka - in terms of absolute “annual avoidable deaths” this was ZERO (0) for Cuba, 0.6 million (Bangladesh), 3.7 million (India), 0.9 million (Pakistan) and ZERO (0) for Sri Lanka.

The Indian Government was happy to recently pass draconian legislation over “terrorism” that tragically kills perhaps 1,000 Indians each year – but STILL will not act effectively to stop the avoidable deaths of 3.7 million Indian each year from deprivation and deprivation-related disease. Yet the examples of Cuba (Communist) and Sri Lanka (Capitalist) BOTH show that with good governance, high literacy and good primary health care ZERO avoidable mortality can be achieved even in relatively impoverished countries.

Considering the Latin American context, 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 corresponds to 0.66 - 0.17 = 0.49 deaths per 100 under-5 year old infants each year and hence 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.

However those Latin American countries actually invaded by US forces in the last half century were severely affected - thus the 2003 “annual under-5 year old death rate”, while only 0.17% for Cuba and the USA was 0.50% (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 did 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” (see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/) 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 the horrendous cost of racist, genocidal, racist Zionist (RZ)-linked US imperialism.

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 in relation to the above data that for impoverished Third World countries, 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/ ) .

The humanitarian messages for the Developing World from the Cuban Medical Miracle and Cuba’s 50 Years of Freedom from US hegemony are simply to avoid racist, genocidal, racist Zionist (RZ)-linked US hegemony and to institute rapid improvements in governance, literacy and primary health care.

By way of horrible testament to this need for liberation from racist, genocidal, racist Zionist (RZ)-linked US hegemony, the "annual under-5 infant death rate" in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan is 2.7% and 6.2%, respectively - noting that the "annual death rate" for Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese in World War 2 was 10.2% (and for which appalling war crime responsible Japanese military leaders were tried and hung).

Viva Cuba!