Havana's Ambassador to Washington calls article in The Washington Post against Cuban doctors insulting

The Cuban ambassador to the United States, José Ramón Cabañas, called the slanderous statements about the island's medical cooperation published by The Washington Post an insult.

In a letter sent to the editorial board of the newspaper, which they deliberately ignored, the diplomat quotes an article published on April 6th under the title "In Cuba, medical solidarity has become big business."

Cabañas said: "Unfortunately, the editorial board of The Washington Post confirms its traditional position when writing about Cuban issues."  The Cuban ambassador to the U.S. argued that the journalistic material contains statements which "do not conform to the truth, nor are they supported by known sources."

"The distortions it contains cannot be verified with official or reliable data.  There is no informative balance sheet," the ambassador insisted, referring to the publication of the newspaper, which prides itself on ensuring that its coverage maintains 'political neutrality.'

"It is an insult to the bilateral and intergovernmental cooperation programs that have been legally established between the Cuban government and the governments of dozens of countries, which conform to the United Nations guidelines for South-South cooperation and respond to the health requirements that those countries have sovereignly defined," the ambassador insisted.

He stressed that, in Cuba, public health is a human right, universal and free, and that the island's Latin American School of Medicine is respected throughout the world, including by American experts.  Jose Ramon Cabañas recalled that hundreds of students from the U.S. "have been trained as doctors in Cuba and have saved the lives of countless patients."