by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

The United States has an embargo against the import of anything from Cuba (especially her ideas).
The US will not allow American citizens to buy anything from Cuba and bring it back to America.
Under the "Helms-Burton Act" America revoked the licenses of ships to dock at American
ports if those ships dared to transport goods to Cuba from another country. America has ignored the
2004 UN resolution which demanded that she lift the embargo against Cuba.

Only after Hurricane Michelle devastated Cuba in 2001 did America even allow Cuba to purchase
food and medicine from America. Cuba has imported food grains but no medicine because she does not
trust the American pharmaceutical industry.

Before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Cuba offered to send 1,100 doctors who spoke English
to help the hurricane victims. America rejected the offer. Why?

America reluctantly returned 6 year old Elian Gonzalez to Cuba in June of 2000 claiming that
America wanted him to have a better life in America. Elian’s mother died at sea while she and
other relatives were trying to reach America in a small aluminum boat in November of 1999. Elian’s
father stayed in Cuba and wanted his son to return and Elian wanted to return to his father. America
would give the world the impression that the Cuban government has her people under house arrest and
is denying her citizens the right to flee "tyranny" and escape to freedom in South
Florida.

From March 19^th to March 28^th I was a part of a delegation that visited
Cuba with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. We saw that the blockade against Cuba had reduced
the levels of consumption of luxury items in Cuba. However, Cuba had developed over 71,000 doctors.
These doctors are paid very low wages compared to doctors in America. Therefore, the doctors in Cuba
should be the first Cubans to flee Cuba if given the chance, so they could make big bucks in
America, if money and luxury are what they want.

Therefore if America felt that her system was better than Cuba’s, she should be glad to allow
the Cuban doctors to taste the "freedom and prosperity" of America. Instead Fidel Castro
offered the doctors and America refused. Hmmmmmm? Could it be that America knows that the Cuban
doctors would have a better chance to convert the victims of Katrina to the Cuban way, rather than
America to convert the doctors from Cuba to the American way?

After America rejected the offer of Cuba to send doctors to aid the victims of Katrina, a massive
earthquake struck Pakistan. Cuba sent these same doctors, called her "Medical Brigade", to
attend to over 100,000 extremely injured victims of that earthquake. Those doctors and technicians
did not seek political asylum in Pakistan. They came back to Cuba after doing their humanitarian
work. We met some of them on our tour and they told us their story of how they worked along side
Turkish and American doctors in the mountains of Pakistan.

Why did these doctors come back to Cuba? Why do the Cubans love their country?

On our visit we saw a country of civilized, well fed, well mannered and happy citizens. Cuba
offers her citizens free education from kindergarten through graduate school. She guarantees that
each citizen receives a base quantity of staple food items. She is reaching out to Black farmers in
America to purchase food products to supplement what Cuba grows at home.

Cuba gives her citizens free medical care including major
surgery, eye surgery and dental surgery. In Cuba the constitution guarantees the right to medical
care. Cuba has one doctor for every 156 of her citizens. According to the 1990 Census there was only
one doctor for every 1,449 Black people in America and only one doctor for every 415 white people in
America. So the Cuban people have better access to medical care than do the American people, Black
or white.

The life expectancy in Cuba was 45 years before the Revolution in 1959. Now her life expectancy
is 77.8 years. She has eliminated measles and tetanus. Her enfant mortality rate is between 5 and
6%. She has polyclinics available in every municipality and convenient to even the most remote
mountainous area of the country.

Cuba not only has 71,000 doctors to serve her population of 12.2 million people, she is sending
doctors around the world in 120 countries. She has deployed 28,200 medical doctors and technicians
throughout the world and has set up medical schools in 4 countries. She has 3,000 foreign students
in her medical schools, all on full scholarship. 82 of these students are Blacks from America. This
number is far short of the 500 full scholarships that Cuba has offered to Black high school
graduates who want to become doctors to service their people back in America.

The whole continent of Africa only has 50,000 doctors. Cuba has developed a strategy to set up 11
medical schools in Africa that should produce 20,000 students per year for the next 10 years to
bring the total number of doctors to 250,000 in ten years.

Under "Operation Miracle" Cuban doctors have performed 250,000 operations to return
site to the blind. Eye surgery is free. She has established ophthalmology centers in Bolivia and
Venezuela. Cuba’s goal is to cure most of the estimated 5,000,000 blind people in South America.
Cuba has even offered free eye surgery to 100,000 American citizens. We wonder if the American
government will deny her citizens a chance to be given back their sight free of charge.

Why does the American government hate Cuba? Cuba allows her citizens to practice whatever
religion they choose. According to the head of religious affairs in Cuba, some people even practice
more than one religion. We even attended a Christian church service on Sunday morning, March 26^th.

Housing is free to every citizen. Farmers can own their own land. However, the farmers have
learned to work together in production, credit and marketing cooperatives. There is no unemployment
in Cuba, because either you have a job or you are in school.

In Cuba everyone is their brother’s keeper. There is no person who is alone or lost or
isolated. In the time of a natural disaster or the threat of invasion, everyone is prepared to act
immediately to save the lives of Cuba’s citizens or protect them against aggression. Even the
farmers keep in reserve a certain number of meat animals in case the city people need to flee and
retreat to the countryside for a time.

So why does the American government hate Cuba? Cuba is educating the ignorant, healing the sick
and opening the eyes of the blind. Cuba’s governing philosophy is what she calls "The Cult of
Human Rights". It now seems that America does not want such a "cult" to infect and
spread to other countries. If Cuba was allowed to influence other governments, then they would be
obligated to see to the needs of her citizens instead of pandering to the bloodsuckers of the poor,
i.e. the international bankers, trans-national corporations and the "merchants of death"
(pharmaceutical-biotech-agribusiness cartels).

Books and lectures by Dr.
Ridgely A. Mu’min