Barbados Prime Minister's Statement on the Cuban medical staff (March 12, 2025) скачать в хорошем качестве

Barbados Prime Minister's Statement on the Cuban medical staff (March 12, 2025)

This matter, with the Cubans and the nurses, should tell us everything that we need to know. Barbados does not currently have Cuban medical staff or Cuban nurses, but I will be the first to go to the line and to tell you that we could not get through the pandemic without the Cuban nurses and the Cuban doctors. I will also be the first to tell you that we paid them the same thing that we pay Bajans, and that the notion, as was peddled not just by this government in the U.S., but the previous government, that we were involved in human trafficking by engaging with the Cuban nurses was fully repudiated and rejected by us. Now, I don't believe that we have to shout across the seas, but I am prepared, like others in this region, that if we cannot reach a sensible agreement on this matter, then if the cost of it is the loss of my visa, to the U.S., then so be it. But what matters to us is principles. And I have said over and over that principles only mean something when it is inconvenient to stand by it. Now we don't have to shout, but we can be resolute. And I therefore look forward to standing with my CARICOM brothers, I wish I could say brothers and sisters, but brothers, to be able to ensure that we explain that what the Cubans have been able to do for us, far from approximating itself to human trafficking, has been to save lives and limbs and sight for many a Caribbean person.