SINA (U.S. INTERSECTION OFFICE) AND PAIN MANIPULATION

By Ernesto Pérez Castillo

When the British newspaper The Guardian released some of the top secret files of the U.S. Intersection Office in Havana, leaked by Wikileaks, it was only showing the tip of the iceberg.
There you can read that one of the missions of Washington officials (or that of Langley?) is to seeking "stories and other news that can destroy the myth of the Cuban medical aid superiority" because, as they recognize, the Cuba’s health service "became one of the strengths of this country”.
A recent event shows that U.S. officials have gone too far than this simple collection of anecdotes, and have come to organize direct offensive and hypocrite provocations; for example, the organization of alleged auction of works of art to raise funds to help Cuban children suffering from cancer. To that end, they handle (and finance) their puppet in the field, Carmen Vallejo, and they could not chose any worse place than the Czech Republic embassy, one of the staunchest allies of the anti-Cuban policy of the United States against Cuba.
Mrs. Vallejo herself, in her blog, has posted photos of her activities, including some with the former head of U.S. Interest Section in Havana, Michael Parmley, the same man that threatened Julien Assange in the Swiss newspaper Le Temp: "I will be very disappointed if he publishes the many conversations I had with the blogger Yoani Sanchez”. Yoani has, among the many missions instructed by Michael Parmley, the task of publicizing the Carmen Vallejo’s provocations. So she twitted on weekend: "#Cuba #GY Yesterday 42 works of Cuban artists were auctioned to raise funds for children suffering from cancer."
Parmley—as well as the U.S. government money— is not the only common point between Yoani and Mrs. Carmen Vallejo. Like the Yoanni, Carmen is someone who once tried to emigrate. Yoanni was starving to death in Switzerland, and therefore returned. She even cried at the airport to come back. Carmen Vallejo had uneven luck and at least, returned to Havana with the paid ticket. But listen to what she said: "In the year 1981, during a trip to Moscow for an ocular treatment, I fled to Stockholm where I asked for political asylum. The Swedish authorities immediately deported me to Cuba”.
That is, we’re talking about someone who received all the benefits of the Revolution –including the transfer to another country to receive medical treatment–, who tried at any cost to settle down beyond the seas, and was kicked from there to here direct and nonstop –because there’s no Cuban Adjustment Act in Sweden– and who once here found nothing better to do but serve the same interests of those who cast out her from the first world.
Anyway, there are people who will never be able to open their eyes, not even if they receive “eye treatment” in Moscow.
The worst and most perverted thing of the provocation that USINT organizes here is that they use the pretext of collecting funds to help Cuban children affected by cancer.
It’s highly criminal that the same government that expressively prevents those children from the access to drugs and technologies, which their quality of life and even their own life depend on, organizes an auction to buy them sweets.
Dr Jesus Reno, head of Paediatrics at the Oncology Institute in Havana, states that as a result of the US blockade: “we cannot complete high-quality treatments in malignant retinal tumors, because they do not sell us the radioactive iodine plaque”.
The blockade has also caused limb amputations in a number of children, by disallowing the purchase of endoprostheses for those diagnosed with malignant bone tumors.
Curiously, very few months ago a similar auction was organized to help a girl suffering from cancer, and was reported by Univision’s website, on its ‘entertainment’ channel…
Of course, Laura, a 6-year-old girl residing in Miami, had her right arm amputated at Jackson's Holtz Children's Hospital, because of a tumor. Now, in order to continue fighting against her cancer, she should receive a treatment whose cost is estimated in 400000 dollars. That’s why, an auction was organized with the attendance of several celebrities, which sold among other things, Thalia’s sunglasses. Altogether, they managed to collect some 20000 dollars, which is like 5% of the necessary figure.
The worst thing is that Laura is Cuban, and her disease was diagnosed in Cuba, where she had free medical assistance.
Despite the US blockade, Cuba’s children with leukemia save their life in 90% of the cases, figure that rises to 94% among those suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and no child death has been reported in several cancer-related pathologies in the last few years. And the entire hospital treatment and assistance is absolutely free of charge.
Moreover, the care for children with cancer transcends the borders of the Island, because since 1990 Cuba has given free medical treatment to some 24000 children from Ukraine, Russia and Belorussia affected by the 1980 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident. Annually, between 700 and 800 children are assisted in Havana, among whom the onco haematological diseases prevail, according to Dr Julio Medina, coordinator of the Cuban program.

Cubasi Translation Staff