By Tal Abbady | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
October 10, 2007
The Cuban government's plan was for Beny Alfonso Rodriguez to help lead
a group of 72 Cuban doctors on a medical mission in the town of
Macarapana, Venezuela.
But Rodriguez, a former soldier, lasted four months. He joined the
mission with one thing in mind: to flee Cuba.
"I was born into the revolution, but I didn't choose it," says
Rodriguez, who arrived in Miami in April.
Rodriguez is among hundreds of Cuban medical personnel who have deserted
their country's overseas medical missions in recent months to apply for
fast-track entry into the United States.
News of the U.S. government's Cuban Medical Professional Parole program,
launched in August 2006, quickly reached rural outposts in Venezuela and
other countries. The policy allows Cuban doctors, nurses,
administrators, lab technicians and other professionals working in
humanitarian medical missions outside Cuba to apply at their host
country's U.S. embassy for entry into the United States. After
undergoing a background check, most applicants are accepted, according
to Ana Carbonell, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami.
"The Castro regime has used these medical professionals as a vehicle for
its international propaganda," Carbonell said.
Carbonell said 1,000 Cuban medical personnel have entered the United
States under the new policy. But there are glitches. A group of Cuban
doctors in Colombia was stranded there for months after applying.
Diaz-Balart's office and South Florida Cuban exile groups have helped
spread the word about the policy and answered e-mail and telephone
inquiries from hundreds of Cuban doctors.
Cuban exile activists say dozens of Cuban medical personnel have
defected in Venezuela. In exchange for cheap oil for Cuba, about 21,000
Cuban doctors staff President Hugo Chavez's free health-care program for
the poor, called Barrio Adentro (Inside the Barrio) — the backbone of
the Venezuelan leader's popular socialist reforms.
"The number one fear of these doctors is that they'll be deported back
to Cuba. Where do they go in a country that's friendly with the Castro
regime? They don't know who to trust," said Camila Ruiz-Gallardo, of the
Cuban American National Foundation.
Many of the doctors have received guidance from the foundation and
another exile group, Solidarity Without Borders. The two groups formed a
partnership in 2006 to help Cuban medical personnel reach the United
States. With the foundation's support, Solidarity has expanded a
program, Barrio Afuera (Outside the Barrio), that provides doctors
hiding in Venezuela or other countries with "safe houses," money and
information about the application process.
Those who reach Florida have also received information about how to
become accredited doctors in the state.
As a key component of its foreign diplomacy, Cuba has dispatched doctors
on international medical missions throughout the world since the early
1960s. Today, up to 40,000 Cuban medical personnel work in 68 countries
on medical missions. In Cuba, they're considered foot soldiers spreading
Fidel Castro's good will in needy communities around the world.
Castro supporters are harshly critical of deserters, especially since
the Cuban government paid for their education.
"There's this resentment on the part of Cubans sympathetic to the
regime. They see these doctors as having sold out for the most craven of
reasons," said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric
Affairs in Washington, D.C.
But some who have deserted missions in Venezuela said they saw a chance
to flee Castro's communist system without risking a high-seas voyage.
Others jumped at the opportunity to earn 10 times the salary they earned
in Cuba.
"I studied several ways of leaving Cuba," said Rodriguez, 23. "I figured
if I threw myself to the seas, I'd get captured. The medical missions
are the only safe escape."
Trained by his government to be a health administrator, Rodriguez
arrived in Venezuela in September 2006. As the administrator and
co-leader of a group of 72 doctors in Macarapana, he was in charge of
ordering medical supplies and food for the small clinic where the
doctors worked. He also coordinated transportation and dispatched
doctors to patients' homes in emergencies, earning around $160 a month.
He said administrators in the missions are typically charged with
monitoring doctors' activities. Those who defect, he and others said,
are sought by Venezuelan and Cuban officials.
With help from Venezuelans who oppose Chavez and sympathize with the
Cuban doctors, Rodriguez packed some clothes, stuffed about $600 in his
pocket and made his way to the Venezuelan island of Margarita in December.
In March he traveled to Colombia, where some Cuban doctors from
Venezuelan missions have fled and applied for entry into the United
States at the Bogota embassy. U.S. officials approved his application in
a month. He now delivers pizzas at night in Miami and is looking for a
day job.
Miguel Alfredo Jimenez, a doctor who specializes in sports medicine,
served in a mission in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, from 2003 to 2005
monitoring the health of a group of athletes. He earned about $330 a
month, up from $30 a month he earned in Havana.
When doctors in his mission prepared to return to Cuba in 2005, he told
mission directors he wouldn't be going with them. By then he had married
a Venezuelan and was having trouble getting the Cuban government to
allow her entry into Cuba.
For more than a year he worked as a physical therapist in Caracas, until
he learned of the U.S. policy for doctors. He applied successfully, and
he and his wife arrived in Miami with their 2-year-old son in July.
"It hurts to admit it," Jimenez said of those who join missions to flee
or earn better pay. "It doesn't mean it's not important in our
profession to help others, but we're in a grave situation in Cuba."
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-flbbarrio1010nboct10,0,7163256.story
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