David Ab­du­lah, po­lit­i­cal leader of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), has con­demned the Unit­ed States for its “im­moral, il­le­git­i­mate bul­ly­ing” in at­tempt­ing to end Cu­ba’s med­ical brigades. He crit­i­cised US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio’s an­nounce­ment that the US will de­ny visas to cit­i­zens of coun­tries “be­lieved to be re­spon­si­ble for, or in­volved in… par­tic­u­lar­ly Cuban over­seas med­ical mis­sions.”

“This is the 200-year-old Mon­roe Doc­trine on steroids,” Ab­du­lah said. “The US be­lieves every coun­try and every in­di­vid­ual in this hemi­sphere is sub­ject to US con­trol.” He called on Caribbean cit­i­zens to “raise their voic­es loud­ly in con­demn­ing this de­ci­sion by Trump/Ru­bio,” adding, “bul­lies don’t re­spect those who whim­per.”

Cuban med­ical pro­fes­sion­als “go to places where no oth­er coun­try wants to as­sist” and pro­vide es­sen­tial care at all lev­els, he said. “They an­swered the call when we need­ed ad­di­tion­al trained re­sources dur­ing Covid. We are in­debt­ed to them.” He com­pared this with the US de­ci­sion to with­draw from the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion, which “has very many neg­a­tive con­se­quences for peo­ple’s lives the world over.”

The MSJ not­ed that CARI­COM Min­is­ters of For­eign Af­fairs had ex­pressed con­cerns and sought di­a­logue. Ab­du­lah said, “It is clas­sic Trump strat­e­gy to di­vide and rule.”

He called on CARI­COM Heads of Gov­ern­ment to take “a unit­ed, strong, un­com­pro­mis­ing po­si­tion.” “No­body can de­ny us that right! And it is a right that we must not sur­ren­der,” he said. Quot­ing for­mer Bar­ba­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Er­rol Bar­row, he added, “We will be friends of all and satel­lites of none.”