[Music]
Okay, we did it. Thank you. I need
Welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me Gayatri.
Dr. Ernesto Che Guara is the man of our
era, a revolutionary internationalist.
He began life as a physician healing the
sick, curing the lame, shaking hands
with lepers. Chay did explain that from
the start all revolutionaries begin from
feelings of love. He loved humanity and
wanted to help set it free from the
sicknesses of oppression, poverty and
hopelessness. His daughter Dr. Ala
Gavara is also a revolutionary physician
and we spoke to her alas unfortunately
just before the seismic change in
relations between Cuba and the United
States. We talked to Dr. Davara in
London about Cuba, her life, her parents
and her children's three
grandfathers. Dr. Ala, you are a medical
physician. Cuba is fantastically famous
for its biomedical uh industry and its
health system which has become admired
around the world. Indeed, has traveled
all around the world.
How did Cuba get to be so good at
healthcare?
From the beginning of the
revolution, our um head commander, Fidel
Castro, was always extremely worried by
the health of its people. But from the
very beginning, we realized that it was
much easier to prevent an illness
instead of having to cure it. For from
the start we had a public health system
fully free for everyone but on top of
that we had this focus on prevention and
together with this education education
of the people because you cannot
convince someone of the need of uh of
doing some things differently if that
person doesn't have a certain level of
education. So the medicine in Cuba from
the very beginning
had to do with a practice of solidarity.
And this is what we started to show to
our people and this is how we were
educated from the very start. And this
reached the point where at the beginning
of the revolution, a lot of uh Cuban
doctors went to the United States. We
had very few left. So we started
training this revolutionary doctor that
didn't have a a private consultation.
Everything is for the state. Everything
is for the people. But on top of that in
1963, so we have the revolution in 59
and in 63. We have uh the revolution in
Algeria where they needed a lot of
doctors and this is the first
international brigade of doctors.
many uh doctors went to Algeria. We
didn't have a lot but we wanted to share
the very little that we have and this is
how we started to grow as a people and
as an instrument of solidarity. Medicine
has proved uh tremendously successful in
the poor barios in Venezuela for example
where most of the people for most of the
time could never have dreamt of having a
doctor. There are Cuban doctors there in
the poorest areas performing miracles.
The operation to cure cataract uh
problems amongst people. This has
operated and given sight to so many
people. Tell us about that.
with Alba in the Alba treaty when we
started to wake up as a continent not
just as a people but as a a continent as
a unity of different people.
Venezuela changed its destiny with uh
the arrival of President Chavez and they
needed a lot of help at at that time and
the very beginning the first thing to do
is to educate because for for people to
be free it has to be educated. When we
started with this campaign we realized
that there were some people who wouldn't
come near us. They didn't want to learn
how to read and write. And why not?
Because they couldn't see. So they were
ashamed in a way and when we started to
diagnose this problem uh we could see
that the problem was only cataracts is a
very simple surgery. It takes a few
minutes only. So, um, Feder Castro, the
commander-in-chief, decided that it
wouldn't only be a campaign to teach
people how to read and write, but we
also needed to carry out these surgeries
to give people their sight back and for
them to be ready to choose if they
wanted to learn how to read and write,
they would be able to and not because of
this physical barrier. So in that sense
we started with this kind of surgeries
and the first patients who were given
their sight back uh there was a very old
man who said this is a miracle and then
we went from Latin America to Africa and
the Middle
East. But the problem that we've seen
and we've seen it with the medical
colleges in these countries sometimes
they don't want to do it. In Argentina
for instance they don't let us work in
their territory. No Cuban doctor can
work there. 48,000 Argentinians have
been uh had the surgery in the border
with Bolivia between Argentina and
Bolivia. We had two hospitals there and
the solidarity gets to these patients
that receive this uh free surgery. So we
have more than 40,000 Argentinians who
have had this surgery and we managed to
do a very small hospital within the
country. Argentina is a very big country
and those who would come from the south
all the way to the north would have to
travel for hours in an omnibus and on
the way back it could be uh dangerous
because it's a simple surgery but it's
still uh people are fragile afterwards.
So we tried to make a a small uh medical
unit fully free services to start giving
this service to Argentinians within
their country educating several
Argentinian of themologists to do it and
they would have a Cuban advisor and we
have managed to give this surgery to
5,000 Argentinians within Argentina but
the best is that it's called Ernesto
Che. the name of the hospital in
Cordoba, Argentina. I heard you speak at
the Latin American Conference in London
at the TU in November. Uh, and you uh
made the point that everything in Cuba
is not perfect. And on the same day, the
interim ambassador uh of Cuba in London
made the point that there are changes
coming in Cuba, but that those changes
are for a better socialism, not a
transformation back to uh capitalism.
tell us, if you will, some of the uh
problems that still remain in Cuba and
what kind of changes we can expect in
the coming months and years.
The first problem that we have in Cuba
is the
blockade imposed to us by the USA for
more than 50 years. It is very easy to
talk about the blockade, but it's
extremely difficult to live it. It's a
situation that um is extremely difficult
for the Cuban people. I always give very
simple
examples. A a little baby 8 months old,
a little girl, she had a a bleeding in
her intestines. And the specific
medication that she needed unfortunately
has a patent in the USA. So nobody gives
Cuba this medication. If the USA finds a
company who selling this to Cuba, they
can receive a fine of five five to10
million dollars or they can forbid for
the products of this particular company
to be sold in the USA. So obviously it
is extremely difficult to find a company
who will sell this medication. Sometimes
we need five or six intermediaries in
order for the FBI not to detect where
the drugs are coming from and this means
it's extremely expensive for Cuba to to
get this drugs. This would be one of the
main problems that we have. If the
blockade stops today, tomorrow the Cuban
economy will flourish immediately. We
spend uh thousands and thousands of
millions of dollars because of the
blockade.
Internally, Cuba is a is a country that
has been learning how to go ahead, how
to go forward. We learn from our
mistakes. We're not perfect. We're men.
We're women. Uh and therefore, we we
commit mistakes.
We've earned the the the right to uh
rectify our own mistakes and we have to
do it ourselves. Nobody else can do it
for us. We listen we listen to opinions
especially if they come from friends of
Cuba. Of course we will take those
opinions into account. There are
problems with urban transport. Uh it's
very bad, extremely bad. We also have a
lot of housing issues. This is a a very
big problem for us and we've achieved a
lot in the last few years but we we
still haven't done enough. We have to
keep going especially for the campinos
living in the countryside. We have to
improve the life of the
campinos peasant farmers who at times
live in conditions that are very bad. So
we have to find a solution for this and
we also have
problems because we live in today's
world. We don't live in another planet.
So there is a an economic crisis
affecting everyone and it is affecting
us as well. At at a certain point, the
Cuban government realized that 500,000
people were working receiving a salary
without producing anything. And this is
unviable in economic terms. So, uh, at
the time these 500,000 people would have
to lose their jobs. But how do you do
this in a socialist system? How can you
leave a worker without work? So, we had
to find uh alternative solutions and
those that we found at the time were to
make these people who would uh end up
without their um state jobs to to do
something by themselves. But this is
also a risk for the Cuban society
because when people start to think only
about their own pockets, sometimes they
forget that they live in a different
society where education is free, health
is free. Sometimes they can forget these
things. And this is a a big issue that
we have to face. And this is what we've
been doing lately to think more about
how to create cooperatives and not about
individuals. But you cannot force people
to form cooperatives. You you have to
make them understand. You have to make
them accept. And then socialism in the
21st century is a new challenge and
we'll talk more about that after the
break.
Welcome back to Sputnik. We are talking
with Dr. Alida Gavara, one of the new
figures in the Cuban
Revolution, traveling the world, talking
about Cuba's achievements, but also uh
not afraid to discuss Cuba's problems as
we were doing in the first half. Dr.
later. Welcome back to Sputnik. Um, I,
as you can see, I'm a very big collector
of photographs and other
memorabilia connected to your father,
Command Dante Chavar. And I wanted to go
through some of these pictures uh, with
you because there are some questions
arise uh, of interest out of uh, all of
them. I hope. Let's uh let's look at
this one first
uh which of course uh depicts
uh two of the great leaders including
the common Dante and He Fidel uh with
your father command Dante Ch. Uh, I
wonder if you um often think about
the coincidence, the kismmet destiny of
their meeting. If they had not met,
everything in the Cuba and everything in
the world actually would be rather
different. They met more or less by
chance and the relationship between them
is one of the great pairings in history.
Uh there are not many other such
examples. What do you remember as a
child and what have you learned in the
rest of your life about the relationship
between your father and Fidel?
Sometime
I had to write a prologue for a book
about my father uh where about the time
when he was in Congo. So I went to see
my uncle Fidel because since the moment
I was born, Fidel has been my uncle. So
I went to see my uncle. Um I sat down
with him and I asked him why Congo, why
the Congo?
And uh he gave me a very clear
explanation, a lengthy explanation. And
towards the end of the conversation, I
asked I asked him, I said to him,
"Uncle, tell me some people are saying
things about you and my father, you
having uh disagreements, discussions." I
said, "When we were p," he said to me,
"When we were prisoners in Mexico, I
gave this order. I said, "Don't say what
your political affiliation is. What did
you think your father do?" Not only did
he say he was a communist, he also
started a lengthy discussion with the
hunchman in the prison about Stalin's
personality. The result, we were all
freed except for your father. When I
went uh to tell him, but you went
against my direct orders. I realized
that your father couldn't lie. He
couldn't. He simply couldn't lie. So,
The discussion was over before it
started. What could I discuss with him?
The only thing that I have to do was
work a bit harder to take him out of
prison. I think that this is something
that uh was really important in
this such relationship between them. Um,
this is something my father always
remembered and from that point onwards
he always respected Fidel as a military
commandant commander because he always
responded for each one of his men and
this is something that united them
forever. That evening when I was talking
to Fidel I started to smile and he asked
me why what are you laughing about? Why
are you smiling? And I said, "Uncle, you
haven't realized, but we you are talking
about my father in the present tense as
if he was about to come by the door."
And he looked at me very seriously. He
said, "No, your father is present."
Well, I once asked Fidel
uh does he think about
Ch. He said that he that ch is often in
his
dreams and he's not dead in the dreams
that he is still alive in these dreams
long after he was dead. It's a very
complicated but a very beautiful uh
answer and in a way you have just uh
confirmed it.
Yes, of
course. Because Fidel like my father did
not accept the the death of u their
companions. It's very difficult to
accept something like that especially
when these people uh have signified so
much for each
other. So it's very wonderful lives that
come together. When my eldest daughter
was uh born, she was born through a
cescareian section. And when I opened my
eyes after the anesthetic, next to me, I
had Ramiro Valdez and Oscar Fernandez
Melo. They were both there with their uh
as as if they'd been in the surgery
room. And I looked at them and I said,
"What are you doing there?" And they
both looked at me and they said, "Your
father is not here. That's why we are
here." And the following day my uncle
went to see me, my uncle Fidel. And
um he discussed with me the name of my
daughter. He wanted to to give her her
name. And I said, "But grandparents
doesn't don't have that right. It's
parents." He was very upset that day
because um I had made a commitment with
the father of my daughter and I couldn't
uh go against it. So I had to put her
give her the name that her father had
chosen and the father wasn't in Cuba to
discuss with Fidel or they could have
discussed it amongst themselves. I had
to assume this responsibility and my
uncle was quite upset about it and a few
years later um I got divorced. My uncle
called me immediately how are you
feeling? How are you? We were talking
and he could hear hear that my eldest
daughter was saying something and he
said to me, "Is the the child there?"
And she I said, "Yes." And he said to
me, "The one with the ugly name."
Because he never accepted this name that
was given to my daughter. And I said to
him,
"Yes, she's here." He said, "I want to
speak to her. Put her on the phone." And
I said, "Funny, come. Your uncle Fidel
wants to speak to you.
He listened to me. He said, "No, I'm not
his uncle. I'm his grandfather." I said,
"Fine. Your grandfather Fidel wants to
speak to you. Would you like to speak to
him?" She says, "Yes." And they started
to have a conversation. And the
following day, I went to to school to
collect my daughter. And when I arrived,
the the teacher from this uh group said
to me, "Listen to me. There is a
problem. I've told your daughter that uh
children only have two grandfathers but
she says to me she insists she has three
of them and there is no way of changing
her mind and I said to her listen the
thing is she spoke to Fidel yesterday
and it was her grandfather and she said
okay she has three grandfathers then
that's why end of story let me ask you
the question that that every person
watching this uh will have in their mind
your father was one of the greatest
human beings who ever
lived. He is a hero
to hundreds of millions, maybe billions
of people. What's it like being the
daughter of such a man?
I have had the great privilege of having
a wonderful mother. And this woman who
loved uh my father so much always said
to us that we will get many things
because we were the children of che. But
we needed to learn to let that
go
to be very firm on this earth and let
this go by these things that we haven't
earned by our own effort. And this was
amazing for us. It is true that a lot of
people love us because simply we are the
children of this man they
adore. Nonetheless, we learned the
lesson very well. And the things that we
haven't earned ourselves as human being,
we let them through. and we've lived
very well quietly with a lot of honor
because we are the children of this man
and this woman. But I've always said the
following. It's not important to be the
daughter of one person or someone else.
But it is very nice to know that your
mother and father have loved each other
so much that you are the the fruit of
this union. And this is makes of you a
wonderful person. But at the same time,
I've been very fortunate because I have
lived and I've been educated in Cuba
with this joy of life that we have in
Cuba with this courage, this strength. I
love very much my people and I feel very
proud to be Cuban. And in that sense uh
there was this commitment every day
being the daughter of my people with
dignity because I owe so much to them.
Maybe I need two lives to do it in order
to repay all the love I've received. Not
only did you learn that lesson well I
lived in the same apartment block as
your brother Camilo and I asked him that
question and he gave me a very similar
answer. So, your mother taught you both
uh very well. I just want to ask I've
only got time to ask you one more
question and I'm asking you it as a as a
doctor.
Um Fidel told me many years ago to stop
smoking
cigars. Uh in fact, he was angry when he
learned that I had disobeyed this order
and I was still smoking cigars. He said,
"We need you more than we need your
money for the
tobacco." Your father was a very big
cigar smoker, and this image is
completely inseparable from him. Did he
smoke in the house around the children?
See,
for he did smoke at home, but not when
we were there, not when we were present.
I don't remember. But uh it's true that
uh I lived with him for a very short
time, but I don't remember him smoking
in front of me. And I've always said he
was still
smoking because uh Celia and I were not
old enough or he would have stopped
forever. We would have made sure we
would have protected him enormously in
that sense. And this is um I have to say
the only thing
that we regret is not just not having
our father with us but us not being old
enough to accompany him. Dr. Ala Gavara,
thank you very much indeed. Jay
definitely lives amongst us.
[Music]
What a remarkable woman. What a moving
story. We hope you enjoyed the interview
and whether you celebrate it or not that
you have a wonderful Christmas. Remember
to stay in touch with us on Twitter at
RT_Sputnik or on Facebook on Sputnik on
Russia Today. Merry Christmas from
Migatri and from me George Galloway.
It's been marvelous.