A group of Cuban doctors working in Nambia who sought asylum in the US received special travel documents from the American Embassy that would allow them to enter the US without passports. Now the Nambian government will not let them leave and the doctors are apparently hiding.
As a result, the constitutionality of a long-running co-operation agreement Namibia has with Cuba on healthcare may soon be challenged in the High Court.
The Legal Assistance Centre representing the doctors may challenge some clauses of the “secret” document that sets out the terms and conditions of the doctors stay in Nambia. Some of the clauses may violate the Cuban doctors human rights, which would make the agreement with Cuba unconstitutional under Nambian law.
If the case goes to court, that document will be made public, and could expose the regimes dirty little secret that the doctors are in fact slaves, not volunteers.
LAC Director Norman Tjombe confirmed over the weekend that the organisation was taking up the case on behalf of three of the affected Cuban doctors, and said that an application would be filed with the High Court this week still.
“If this agreement prohibits them from travelling, from making acquaintances, then we will challenge it,” Tjombe said.
Should the case go to court, the agreement between the two governments would have to be made public.
The Namibian has tried unsuccessfully to gain comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since last Wednesday.
Neither the Minister, nor the Permanent Secretary or the latter’s deputy were available to comment on the issue, their secretaries have told The Namibian.
Messages have been left with the PS, the Deputy PS and the Acting PS’s offices, but have not been replied to.
The Second Secretary in the Cuban Embassy, Evelio Sanchez, was reluctant to discuss the contents of its agreement with Namibia, referring The Namibian to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The conditions which cover the activities of these people here are all covered in that document [bilateral Cuban-Namibian agreement].
They come to Namibia under this agreement and are expected to return to their country of origin after their term expires,” he told The Namibian.
“There is an unfortunate situation that has presented itself now with these medical personnel, but it’s up to the Namibian Government to come up with an answer to your queries.
It’s quite a delicate issue for an embassy to reply to,” Sanchez said.
Delicate is not the word I would choose to describe the gross human rights violations these doctors have suffered, and I pray this case ends the exploitation of Cuban doctors.
Read the whole thing at The Nambian.
Dudes, the season just started here, and I am taking to players, scouts, other teams who want players on loan. I am setting trips for away games and supplies for home games, etc etc etc.. lots of stuff going on.
So someone please tell me I misread this:
and I pray this case ends the exploitation of Cuban doctors.
exploitation???? You want the case to end in the exploitation of the Cuban doctors???
Yes Daniel I want this case to end the exploitation of Cuban doctors, at least in Nambia. Whats wrong with that and what players?
Nonono Ziva, what I read was ” I pray this case ends (IN) the (exportation) of Cuban doctors.” It sounded weird, that you would use exportation so I kept rereading it and rereading it and my brain just kept seeing that IN and EXPORTATION. I realized I was misreading “exploitation” for “exportation”. When I finally saw “exploitation” I kept thinking I saw an “in exploitation”. I just misread it like a thousand times.
The players I mention, is for the soccer club I work for. The second division of the state championship just started. We are finalizing player contracts, but we have some players that aren’t playing that other clubs want to use on loan, and we have a player that we are sending over to Germany, trying to secure a sponsorship with a bus line (lots of travel within Brasil is done on inter/intra state buses, like Greyhound or Trailways, so we are making a deal with one of the companies to do our team travel in exchange for ads on the uniform and in the stadium.
I check the feed during the day to see the new posts, and I just surfed over to read it, and like I said, I misread it.
Good grief, Daniel now I am LMAO! I read your comment in a rush before drinking any coffee and just couldn´t figure out what you were saying. Good luck with the soccer players!
ya, we were both in a rush when we read it, so we misread/ misinterpeted everything…