WE ARE BEING LIED TO
SA does not need doctors, engineers or medicines from Cuba: if the ANC wants to help Havana financially, it should just say so
The ANC really needs to show South Africans some respect. We were not born yesterday. We are not idiots. We know that Cuba is desperate for cash. We know the ANC wants to help Cuba. ANC leaders need to show some mettle and say openly they are helping Cuba out financially, instead of lying about importing engineers or doctors or medicines.
The whole rigmarole is embarrassing and shows a shocking lack of courage and spine on the part of the ANC.
Some of us are old enough to remember that Cuba was a great supporter of the ANC during its exile years. Leader Fidel Castro and the Cubans donated cash, advisers and material, and mobilised support for the ANC. Cuba bravely fought against the apartheid state in Angola while using international platforms like the UN General Assembly to rail against John Vorster, PW Botha and apartheid.
At a dark time in our history, progressive South Africans knew that on the international stage Castro would stand firm for their liberation. He never wavered. As a friend, Cuba was as straight and true and honest as an arrow. You could not ask for better.
Nelson Mandela adored Castro and Cuba. He was not shy to say so: “I [stand up for Cuba] because our moral authority tells us that we cannot ignore those who have helped us during the darkest moments in our country’s history … And those South Africans who have berated me for being loyal to our friends, literally, they can go and throw themselves into a pool.”
This is where SA today differs from the principled leadership of a Castro or a Mandela. The two leaders had no shame about their allegiances. When apartheid apologists told Castro that Mandela was a terrorist, he said no, the man is a freedom fighter. When the same people told Mandela that Castro was a communist dictator, he told them no, he is a socialist defending his country against capitalist attempts to exploit Cuba’s resources. Mandela was not ashamed of his friend. He did not hide in the dark, or lie. He did not make up stories. He stood on principle.
SA is ashamed of its friendship with Cuba today. It hides its help for Cuba behind lies.
Last year the SA National Defence Force secretly acquired the drug Heberon, or interferon alfa-2b, from Cuba at a cost of more than R200m. The defence force claimed the drug “confers heightened protection against Covid-19”. Later, Maj-Gen Mzikayise Tyhalisi told parliament there had been agreement with the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority that the interferon would be used only for clinical trials.
It’s all lies, of course. As virologist Prof Shabir Madhi told the Sunday Times, there is “no scientific rationale for doing a clinical trial of interferon alfa-2b, as it has already been shown to be ineffective in the WHO [World Health Organisation] Solidarity Trial in the treatment of Covid-19”.
We need to be honest. The ANC wants to give Cuba the kind of support the country requires. It cannot give it skills or military assistance. Cuba needs money.
So, instead of giving Cuba the cash it needs, we are put through these laughable, embarrassing money-laundering exercises that our government is engaged in. We buy drugs that are not necessary. We claim we need doctors, and so, at an unconscionable cost, we send kids to Cuba to learn Spanish, live in dodgy accommodation, face loneliness — and maybe become doctors. Why not build a new medical school in SA if we need doctors? Why bring in Cubans at costs far higher than investing in our own?
When SA mining companies needed engineers, they threw money at Wits University, the University of Cape Town and others to build some of the best engineering faculties at local universities. When Eskom needed engineers, it started programmes with local universities to open up and recruit black kids to its then lily-white corridors. It’s not rocket science.
We are being lied to. SA does not need water engineers. It already has them and can train more at less than half the cost. SA does not need interferon medication from Cuba. Many SA pharmaceutical companies can produce the same or better products.
Our leaders are just being spineless.
Our leaders are just being spineless. Why bring in Cubans at costs far higher than investing in our own skills and training?