cuba timor leste cooperation

• President Fidel Castro announced Cuba’s readiness to receive another 400 youth from Timor Leste for medical training, and to offer this country the new literacy method Yo sí puedo (Yes I can).

Accompanying Prime Ministry Mari Bim Amude Alkatiri, Fidel met with the 199 medical students who just finished a course at the Social Workers School of Cojímar.

He also announced that a group of 300 physicians would travel to Timor Leste to offer aid services and to contribute to the preparation of health professionals, and that a few days ago Cuban professors helped to open a Faculty of Medicine in Dili, the country’s capital.

He explained the goal of reaching one doctor per thousand inhabitants, in hopes of reducing, as much as possible, the high indices of infant and maternal mortality, terrible diseases and epidemics inherited from colonialism.

Fidel said that conversations with Mari Bim Amude Alkatari were very interesting and that they gave him a deeper understanding of the history of these valiant people, their resistance and desire for independence in the face of Portuguese colonialism, and the many attempts to destroy their sovereignty.

Fidel explained that in official conversations with the Timorese Premier, they spoke of Cuba’s cooperation with Africa —where a great number of combatants gave their lives fighting apartheid—, of medical assistance to Pakistan and Guatemala, and of plans to train health professionals.

He stated that there are 12,000 students in the Latin American School of Medicine and in the next three months there will be 20,000. He also emphasized that 60 Cuban physicians are now working in Timor Leste.

Fidel further announced that two technicians were sent to Dili to establish the use of the new literacy method that will allow the rapid teaching of Portuguese reading and writing in a country where 50% of the population is illiterate.

Regarding the progress of Operation Milagro (Operation Miracle), he said that this year more than 200,000 people will undergo sight operations, among them 156,000 Venezuelans, 15,000 Caribbean’s and 35,000 Cubans, and he announced that he hopes to extend this program to help the people of Timor Leste.

In the Tetum language, Mari Bim Amude Alkatiri gave thanks for Cuban assistance in the areas of health and education, with its new literacy method, and asked the medical students to be diligent, given that their country awaits them and has placed great hope in them.

He expressed what a privilege it is to be able to train as medical professionals in a country whose education level is comparable to that of developed countries demonstrating what can be accomplished despite having little natural resources.

The Prime Minister explained that Timor Leste is poor even though it has petroleum and gas because, as a consequence of illiteracy inherited from colonialism, it has no human capital.

During his stay in Cuba, Alkatiri visited the National Ophthalmology Institute Pando Ferrer, accompanied by the Minister of Public Health José R. Balaguer. This institution has carried out more than 50,000 of the more than 170,000 operations that have been performed throughout Cuba as part of Operación Milagro.

The Premier also visited the19th of April policlinic in the Havana municipality Plaza de la Revolución and the Historical Center of Old Havana.

Before leaving for his country, Alkatiri expressed that the visit was successful and surpassed all his expectations.

A small country of more than 770,000 inhabitants, the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste is located in Southeast Asia and covers the eastern half of Timor Island, the neighboring islands of Atauro and Jaco, as well as Oecussi-Ambeno, a political enclave of East Timor situated on the western side of the island.

Formerly called Portuguese Timor, after a complex process and a UN sponsored referendum for self-determination, it gained its independence on May 20, 2002 and has confronted great challenges in the reconstruction of infrastructure and the consolidation of a young governmental administration. •