Cuba creates four anti-cancer vaccines, media ignores it

That Cuba has already developed four vaccines or inoculations against different types of cancer is without doubt important news for humanity. The World Health Organisation says each year about 8 million people die from this illness.

However, the international mainstream media have almost totally ignored this news.

Last year, Cuba patented the first therapeutic vaccine against advanced lung cancer in the world, called CIMAVAX-EGF. In January, the second one, called Racotumomab, was announced.

Clinical testing in 86 countries shows that these vaccines, although they don’t cure the illness, do managed to reduce tumours and allow for a stable stage of the illness, thereby increasing hope and quality of life.

The Molecular Immunology Centre of Havana, a Cuban state organisation, is the creator of all these vaccines.

In 1985 it developed the vaccine for meningitis B, the only one in the world, and later others that fight hepatitis B and dengue. For years, the centre has been conducting research to develop vaccines against AIDS-HIV.

The other Cuban state-run centre, Laboratories LABIOFAM, has developed homeopathic medicine for cancer such as VIDATOX, created from the blue scorpion’s venom. Cuba exports these medicines to 26 countries, and takes part in joint companies with China, Canada, and Spain.

All of this goes against the well-enforced stereotype, reinforced by the media silence regarding advances achieved by Cuba and other global south (so-called Third World) countries, that vanguard medical research takes place only in so-called developed countries.

Undoubtedly, the Cuban state obtains an economic benefit from the international sale of these pharmaceutical products. However, its philosophy of investigation and commercialisation is diametrically opposed to the business practices of the large pharmaceutical industry.

Nobel Prize for Medicine winner Richard J Roberts recently denounced the pharmaceutical industry for orienting its research not to curing illnesses, but to developing medicine for chronic ailments, which is much more economically profitable.

Roberts suggested the illnesses that are particular to poorer countries, because of their low profitability, simply are not researched. That is why 90% of the budget for research is aimed at illnesses suffered by 10% of the world’s population.

Cuba’s public medicine industry, even though it is one of the main sources of foreign currency for the country, is guided by radically different principles.

In the first place, its research is aimed at, in a large part, developing vaccines that prevent illnesses and as a consequence, reduce the population’s spending on medicine.

In an article in the prestigious magazine Science, researchers from Stanford University (California), Paul Drain and Michele Barry, said Cuba has better health indicators than the United States, despite spending up to 20 times less on the sector.

The reason for this is the absence, in the Cuban model, of commercial pressures and encouragement by pharmaceutical companies, and a successful strategy of educating the population about preventative healthcare.

Furthermore, traditional and natural therapies, such as herbal medicine, acupuncture, hypnosis and many others — practices that are not very profitable for the makers of medicine — have been integrated into the free public health system of the island for years.

Also, in Cuba, medicine is distributed via the national public hospital network as something that is either free or highly subsidised, thanks to the income from exporting it.

The Cuban medicine industry also barely assigns any of its budget to publicity. In the case of the multinationals, publicity spending is higher than what they invest in actual research.

Finally, Cuba promotes the production of generic medicine. These are made available in other poor countries and to the World Health Organisation at much lower prices than those offered by the global medicine industry.

But these measures, removed from market rules, generate a lot of pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.

Recently, the Ecuadorian government announced it would buy a large number of medicines from Cuba in exchange for scholarships for Ecuadorian students to study in Cuba and for the support provided by Cuban specialists.

Protests against the move by the Ecuadorian Association of Pharmaceutical Laboratories were immediately converted into a media campaign, spreading the message of the supposed bad quality of Cuban medicine.

On the other hand, many analysts see the international pharmaceutical industry as being behind the coup in Honduras in 2009. The elected government of Manuel Zelaya, in the framework of agreements made within the Cuba- and Venezuela-founded Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our Americas to which Honduras then belonged, aimed to substitute Cuban generic medicine for imports from multinationals.

The US blockade against Cuba imposes big obstacles to the international commercialisation of Cuban pharmaceutical products, but it is also directly detrimental to US citizens. For example, each year the 80,000 diabetics in the US who suffer the amputation of their toes don’t have access to the Cuban vaccine Heperprot P, which would prevent such amputations.

The Chemistry Nobel Prize winner Peter Agre recently said: “Cuba is a magnificent example of how scientific knowledge and research can be integrated.”

Irina Bokova, general director of UNESCO, said she was impressed by Cuba’s scientific achievements and her organisation is willing to promote them to the rest of the world.

The inevitable question is, will she count on the essential collaboration of the international mainstream media to spread this information?

This article was written by Jo MacLean and translated for Green Left Weekly by Tamara Pearson

A page of history: 2 January 1959

On the morning of Friday, Jan. 2, 1959, Americans who purchased The New York Times learned about a significant news event. "Batista and regime flee Cuba," said a headline atop Page One. "Castro moving to take power; Mobs riot and loot in Havana."

Subheads said: "Army halts fire," and "Rebels seize Santiago and Santa Clara, march on capital."

Here is that important story, the way it was received in the United States on that day.

By R. HART PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Havana, Friday, Jan. 2 -- Fulgencio Batista resigned as President of rebellion-torn Cuba yesterday and fled to exile in the Dominican Republic. The rebel forces of Fidel Castro moved swiftly to seize power throughout the island.

Dr. Manuel Urrutia, Senor Castro's own choice, appeared likely early this morning to become the provisional President. Col. Ramon Barquin, who had been imprisoned for conspiring against the Batista Government, was brought here by military plane from the Isle Pines penitentiary and named chief of the joint staffs.

Colonel Barquin immediately sent out a call to Senor Castro to come to the capital with Dr. Urrutia and set up a new Government. The rebel leader and his forces had entered Santiago de Cuba late yesterday and had taken over the Moncado army post without firing a shot. About 5,000 soldiers there surrendered.

Key Cities Captured

Truckloads of soldiers moved into Havana last night to maintain order in conjunction with militia of Senor Castro's 26th of July Movement, who were also patrolling the streets armed with machine guns and rifles.

The rebel forces forged ahead throughout the island. While some insurgents spread out from Santa Clara, capital of Las Villas Province, which they had seized Wednesday, other groups announced the capture of Camaguey.

General Batista led an exodus from Cuba that has reached a total of perhaps 400 persons fleeing by ship and plane to the United States and the Dominican Republic. They included key political and military leaders and their families.

Piedra Is Rejected

Calling his military chiefs together early yesterday at Camp Columbia, army headquarters, General Batista, strong man of Cuban politics for most of the period since 1933, declared he was resigning "to prevent further bloodshed."

He left behind a junta headed by Gen. Eulogio Cantillo, recently the commander in Oriente province, the center of the Castro revolt. The junta immediately designated Dr. Carlos Piedra, the oldest judge of the Supreme Court, as provisional President in accordance with the Constitution of 1940.

General Cantillo took over as chief of staff of the army. Dr. Gustavo Pelayo was designated Premier.

But Senor Castro declared that his insurgents would remain on a "war footing" and refused to accept the designation of Justice Piedra as provisional President. The Supreme Court refused to administer the oath of office to the Justice.

The rebel leader called a general strike for today in protest against the Piedra regime. He demanded that Dr. Urrutia, former judge of the Urgency Court of Santiago de Cuba, be installed as the provisional President, as he had proposed a year ago.

The Cane Planters Association of Cuba, speaking for the island's pivotal sugar industry, last night issued a statement supporting Senor Castro and his movement.

General Cantillo, as army chief, issued a cease-fire order to troops throughout the island. Political prisoners were being freed in Havana and the interior. Yesterday afternoon several hundred in Principe Fortress in Havana were released.

Restaurants Barricaded

Since it was New Year's Day, commerce and industry were halted. Restaurants, cafes and grocery stores closed their doors as rioting began. Mobs broke windows and looted some stores. The police fired on the mobs and a number of persons have been killed and wounded.

A mob set fire to the plant of El Tiempo, a newspaper owned by Senator Rolando Masferrer. Senator Masferrer, an intimate friend of General Batista, had a private army of some 2,000 operating in Oriente Province. They were accused by the inhabitants of many killings and tortures. The office of Dr. Rafael Guas Inclan, elected Mayor of Havana in November, was burned.

As the news of the fall of the Government spread early yesterday, the public poured into the streets.

The black and red flag of the 26th of July Movement, headed by Senor Castro, appeared on automobiles and buildings. Cars raced through the streets with horns blowing.

Mob Destroys Gambling Casino

Firing broke out near the docks, but details were not immediately available. A mob destroyed the new gambling casino in the Plaza Hotel.

Amleto Battisti, owner of the Sevilla Biltmore Hotel and its casino and a Representative in Congress, took refuge in the Uruguayan Embassy.

Armed young rebels seized the radio stations. Broadcasts called on the people to remain calm and orderly.

Crowds also attacked the Banco de la Construccion in the Central Plaza.

Latin-American embassies were crowded with officials who had taken political asylum. Hundreds of others were hiding in the city.

In the afternoon the National Association of Newspapermen declared a strike until the situation was clarified. But several Havana newspapers had published extra editions.

Cruise Ships Leave Port

United States Ambassador Earl E. T. Smith warned American citizens to take "appropriate precautions." Two big cruise ships with many American tourists aboard, in Havana harbor for the New Year's holiday, left yesterday.

Many tourists were stranded here by the swift fall of the Government. Plane service was curtailed for a time and ships arriving at Havana were unable to dock owing to the strike. The United States Embassy said it was trying to arrange transportation for a large number of tourists and some students who had asked its assistance.

Later, it was announced that it was arranging for a ship to come from Key West today to pick up stranded citizens.

City Almost Deserted

Restaurants and other establishments that closed during the rioting did not open because personnel heeded the strike call. However, most hotels supplied their guests with meals.

The resistance movement told the public that the strike would not include telephones, broadcasting and power services.

At night Havana was almost a deserted city, the inhabitants remaining in their homes. Only a few automobiles moved on the streets. The mobs had disappeared.

In the luxurious Miramar residential section, a few of the homes of high officials were looted, including that of the chief of the national police, Pilar Garcia, who fled in the morning.

No Patrolmen Seen on Street

No policemen on foot were seen patroling the streets of Havana. Some patrol cars drove about. The lack of display of force was in startling contrast with the number of armed forces that patrolled the city and guarded strategic points heretofore.

Later last night, troops and militiamen took over the task of guarding the city.

Eusebio Mujal, secretary general of the Confederation of Cuban Workers, sought asylum in the Argentine Embassy. Senor Mujal and his labor leaders strongly supported the Batista regime.

Guevara's daughter visits Oxford

The following article appeared in the Oxford Mail following Aleida’s visit to Oxford as part of the ‘Remembering Che’ tour.

Aleida Guevara, the eldest daughter of the iconic Argentinian revolutionary, visited Oxford yesterday on the last stop of her Remembering Che tour.

As well as signing books and taking a whistlestop tour of Oxford, she used the trip to raise awareness of the situation in Cuba, which has been under blockade by the United States for 50 years.

In an exclusive interview with the Oxford Mail, she said: “The main purpose is to speak about the Cuban reality today, the struggle we wage in Cuba against the American blockade.

 “In the first place the United States has to lift the blockade. That will make life for Cubans much easier. Then it would be necessary to achieve a greater unity among Latin American countries.”

She spoke about her father, who was executed in Bolivia when she was seven years old, with great admiration, and said she had seen a massive demonstration of respect for him and his beliefs in Britain.

She said: “I didn’t get to live for a long time with my father, it was only through the love that my mother had for him that I learned who he really was.”

Fans of Dr Guevara and her family packed the Waterstones store in Broad Street to have copies of her mother’s book Remembering Che and other texts signed.

And Leighton Gibbins, 41, from Thame, pictured with Dr Guevara, said: “I came because of my interest in Che. He was a hero of mine.”

BBC interview with Aleida Guevara

In September 2012, Dr Aleida Guevara - daughter of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara - visited the UK as a special guest of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign. She attended the TUC Conference in Brighton as part of her 'Remembering Che' tour and conducted this interview with BBC South East.

Guevara: Now is the time for action

This report of Aleida Guevara’s talk in Scotland appeared in the Morning Star.

A crowd of hundreds filled the main hall and an overflow room, and yet more people gathered in the first and second floor galleries of the STUC Centre to hear and be inspired by the remarkable Aleida Guevara, speaking about Cuba and her father Che.

Aleida was in Glasgow on a British visit, campaigning to win justice for the Miami Five and to end the illegal US blockade.

"Most of you will know the essential story of the Cuban revolution and the strides we have made since then," she said."But sometimes you might take your eyes off the situation. Living the blockade is a real struggle, every day."

Cubans had suffered 500 years of oppression and then 50 years of blockade, she said, but the most painful problem was the lack of vital foodstuffs and medicines.

Appealing for justice for the Miami Five political prisoners held in the US, Aleida added: "We are not asking the USA to do anything special, just to follow their own laws.

"If they did that, the five would be back in Cuba tomorrow."

Dr Guevara, a paediatrician, said Cuba was training doctors for other poor countries and drew some hard practical lessons for supporters in Britain and the developed world.

"Solidarity is sharing what you can see other people need," she said. "Not sharing what you already have too much of. It boils down to something very simple - we have to work together. There's a lot of talk about support for us, but we need action. You might be worried about us, but we are very worried about you too," Aleida quipped.

"You worked for many years get free public services like education and health - and now you're allowing them to privatise it all!"

My father Che: Guevara's daughter Aleida on growing up in her father's shadow

The following article appeared in the Daily Mirror.

To some he’s a cold-blooded executioner. To millions, he’s the revolutionary whose face has come to symbolise their own struggles against oppression.

And to others, he’s just an image – the epitome of cool, exploited by brandmakers and fashionistas alike.

But for one woman, Ernesto “Che” Guevara was simply “Papi” – a beloved father whose dedication to the South American revolution stole him from her far too soon.

Dr Aleida Guevara, the eldest of Che’s four children with his second wife, was nearly seven when her dad was assassinated by CIA-backed agents in Bolivia 45 years ago.

Growing up in his shadow, the widespread adulation for him confused her at first.

 “Up to the age of 16 I wondered, ‘Why should I love my father?” she says. “He was never beside me.’ Then I went through all the memories I have of him and realised he was a man who knew how to love.”

She shrugs: “I had to love him back.”

Aleida, now 51, is speaking in Brighton ahead of a talk she was giving at a fringe meeting at the TUC conference.

Named after her mother, she bears a strong resemblance to her father, with warm eyes, ready smile and fierce passion evident in her hand gestures.

A series of motorcycle tours through impoverished parts of South America in the early 1950s – since made into films based on his diaries – fuelled Argentinian-born Che’s opposition to inequality.

KILLED

He rose to prominence with Fidel Castro in the successful guerilla campaign to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in the late 50s.

But Che left Cuba when Aleida was just four to continue his mission to spread revolution in Latin America and beyond. He was killed almost three years later in October 1967, deep in the Bolivian jungle, aged just 39.

Che kept diaries and wrote poignant letters to his family, which he used to maintain his role as a father in a way he couldn’t physically. He made up stories to keep them in check.

When Aleida’s younger brother Camilo got in trouble for swearing at school, Che wrote to him saying he must stop otherwise Pepe the Caiman – a character he invented - “would bite off” Che’s leg.

Che disappeared from Cuba after upsetting the Soviets who backed Castro, but occasionally he would sneak back to visit his family, disguised so his children wouldn’t recognise him and give the game away.

It is those visits that form most of the scant memories Aleida has of her father. She smiles as she describes one favourite visit: “Beautiful because it’s all my own memory, not distorted by other people.

“I was about four-and-a-half, in a dark bedroom. My mother was holding my youngest brother Ernesto, a month old. There was a man behind her in military fatigues, and I saw his huge hand stroke my brother’s head and hair so delicately, just like I remember he’d do to me.

“It was my Papi. I remember that as though it was yesterday.”

A mother herself, to daughters Estefania, 23, and Celia, 22, divorced Aleida now appreciates her father’s dilemma. Tears come to her eyes as she says: “I’m a mother now, and I understand what it means to say goodbye to a baby. I cannot imagine what went through his head about this baby my father barely knew when he left Cuba.

“The most beautiful thing for a child is to know you’re loved by your parents – and there was a lot of love in this image I have in my head.”

As much as Che has been remembered for his fierce intellect and romanticism, he wrote of executing “traitors” and “spies”.

These include farmer Eutimio Guerra, who admitted betraying the revolution.

Of his death, Che wrote: “I fired a .32 calibre bullet into the right hemisphere of his brain which came out through his left temple. He moaned for a few moments, then died.”

How does Aleida reconcile her loving father with this killer? “Yes, my father killed – but revolutions are almost always violent. If you live in a country where the police are always killing and torturing its people, there will be clashes. If the enemy doesn’t give you what you want, you must take it. My father simply carried out justice decided by tribunals according to the laws of Cuba at the time.”

While she says she is not political, Aleida has dedicated herself to different causes. Part of her tour, organised by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, UK, included a vigil in London for the Miami Five – a long-running effort to free five men the CSC say were jailed by America for infiltrating anti-Castro terrorist groups.

Aleida is also a paediatrician, following in her medic father’s footsteps, to “give back all the love the Cuban people have always shown to me”, and has been instrumental in setting up children’s homes in the Cuban capital Havana.

She has also worked as a doctor in other countries, particularly Angola, and like her father, her experiences bolstered her passion for equality.

On her travels she often wears a T-shirt bearing the famous image of Che taken by Alberto Korda Díaz at a funeral rally in March 1960 that has become the most reproduced image in history. While often used to represent a fight against oppression, it has also been hijacked by fashionistas and used for commercial gain.

Aleida says if her father’s face is used “on a poster in the house of somebody who loves him, or on T-shirts worn by young people protesting about injustice”, she feels happy.

“But if his image is economically exploited, it angers me. I hate it and I’ll fight,” she said.

RESPECT

Among others, Che’s image has been printed on a bikini, used to advertise a German optician and on a vodka bottle.

She continues: “I don’t want money out of it – just respect for my father.”

It was the sudden appearance of Che’s image on posters in the streets of Havana that first alerted Aleida to his death.

She says: “I asked why so many photos of my daddy, but nobody answered.

“Uncle Fidel suspected my father had been killed and wanted to prepare me and my sister for the worst. He told us he’d received a letter from our daddy, saying if he died the way he wanted to die, we shouldn’t cry for him.

“The next day, I was told to take some soup to my mother. She was crying.

“She told me to sit down and read me a letter. It started, ‘If you are reading this letter, it means I am no longer around’. That final letter was when I realised I didn’t have a father any more.”

Aleida is an outspoken critic of the US blockade of Cuba, which marks its 50th anniversary this year. She acknowledges poverty faced by Cubans and is “disappointed” in the Obama administration that she had faith in to remove it.

And as Britain prepares for a TUC demonstration on October 20 against the Conservative-led coalition’s cuts on the NHS, Aleida offers her support.

“Defend your rights. Don’t let anybody take what belongs to you,” she says.

“All that you have achieved through so many years of trouble and hard work is the right of the British people – and I hope you defend it.”

'Che Guevara was just Papi to me': Daughter of icon revolutionary talks of her beloved father for the first time

Che with his second wife, Aleida March

The following article appeared in the Daily Mail.

The daughter of iconic South American revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara has told for the first time of her love for the man she called 'Papi'.

Dr Aleida Guevara was almost seven years old when her father was executed in the Bolivian jungle in 1967 by agents working for the CIA.

She recalls how he would occasionally visit her and her brother in disguise after vanishing from Cuba when he fell out with the Russians who backed his close confidante Fidel Castro.

Now 45 years after his death, Dr Guevara told the Daily Mirror: 'Up to 16 I wondered, "Why should I love my father?"  He was never beside me.

'Then I went through all the memories I have of him and realised he was a man who knew how to love. I had to love him back.'

The eldest of Che's four children from his second marriage, Dr Guevara is in Britain to speak at a fringe meeting at the TUC conference.

She is campaigning for the Miami Five, who were jailed in 1998 in the U.S. for allegedly infiltrating anti-Castro terrorist groups.

Her father's face has been exploited on millions of T-shirts, catwalk fashions, posters, a vodka bottle, and even a bikini worn by superstar model Gisele Bundchen.

Dr Guevara, 51, said she is happy for his image to be used by fans, but admitted she gets angry if her father is 'economically exploited.

She told writer Melissa Thompson: 'I don't want money out of it - just respect for my father.'

He left Aleida - named after her mother - when she was four but kept in touch by letter and tried to be a parent, inventing fantasy characters to keep the children under control.

She only learned he had died when posters bearing his picture started appearing on the streets of Havana where she lived with her siblings.

It was Castro himself who prepared her for his death when he told her she should not cry for her father because Che had written to the Cuban leader saying that he had died the way he wanted to.

The next day her mother read out a letter from her father which began: 'If you are reading this letter it means I am no longer around.'

Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist.

As a young medical student, Guevara travelled throughout Latin America and was radically transformed by the endemic poverty.

Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro and joined their movement to overthrow the U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year campaign that deposed the Batista regime.

Aleida accepts her father killed but told the Daily Mirror: 'Yes my father killed, but revolutions are almost always violent. If the enemy doesn't give you what you want you must take it.'

Minibus given to Che Guevara's daughter in memory of Gateshead union leader

The following article appeared in The Journal to coincide with Aleida Guevara’s visit to Newcastle as part of the ‘Remembering Che’ tour. 

THE daughter of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara has accepted a minibus presented in memory of union leader Kenny Bell.

Dr Aleida Guevara was in the region to receive the 16-seater bus in remembrance of the Unison deputy convenor, who tragically died last year.

For decades Mr Bell fought for the rights of workers, and continued to do so through a year when he knew his cancer was terminal.

The 62-year-old spent the last months of his life fighting coalition Government spending cuts despite being told that he had an aggressive form of throat cancer, which had sadly spread despite chemotherapy.

He also led the team of fundraisers who encouraged Unison branches to donate money to purchase the minibus, computers and medical equipment, which will be shipped to Cuba.

The minibus, named the Kenny Bell Minibus for Cuba, was handed to Dr Guevara at a ceremony at Newcastle’s Civic Centre.

Regional convener for Unison, Clare Williams, said: “Unison Northern Region were delighted to welcome Dr Aleida Guevara, the daughter of legendary Cuban hero Che, to Tyneside to talk about her experiences in International Health Brigades, and her father.

“This minibus project was inspired by our deputy convenor Kenny Bell, who died a year ago, and who was an inspirational figure with a tremendous commitment to international solidarity and encouraging young members.”

Mr Bell passed away on August 14 at his home in Blackhall Mill, Gateshead. He leaves behind his partner Joyce and their sons Patrick, Jack and Joseph.

'My dad Che was true to his beliefs'

The following article appeared in the Nottingham Post after Aleida’s visit to Nottingham as part of her ‘Remembering Che’ tour.

ABOUT 200 people turned out to see the daughter of Che Guevara speak in Nottingham city centre.

Aleida Guevara gave a lecture at the Square Centre, in Alfred Street North, on Tuesday night as part of a UK tour.

Che Guevara was an Argentinian Marxist who played a key role in the 1959 Cuban revolution which overthrew the country's military government.

Aleida Guevara was seven when her father was killed in Bolivia in 1967, aged 39, while trying to launch a revolution there.

After his death his name and image were immortalised by many young people and used as a rallying point for left-wing politics.

Ms Guevara told the audience: "I was angry, of course, growing up without a dad, but my mother always says, love your father for who he was, a man who had to do what he did.

"My father died defending his ideals. Up to the last minute he was true to what he believed in. This is what I admire."

Ms Guevara also spoke at the TUC conference in Brighton on Monday, and also visited Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Che Guevara's daughter tells of her anxiety for the future of Britain's health service

The following article appeared in the Derby Telegraph following Aleida Guevara’s visit to Derby as part of her ‘Remembering Che’ tour.

THE daughter of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara says any changes made to the NHS must be "for the better" – as it would be "very sad" if the system was lost.

Dr Aleida Guevara made the comments yesterday ahead of a workshop for health professionals at Royal Derby Hospital. She was invited to speak about the role Cuban doctors perform working overseas. There are 20,000 in more than 70 different countries worldwide.

But Dr Guevara – who also visited Derby in 2009, when she described the NHS as "one of the best healthcare systems in the world" – said: "I have been reading about the NHS being in danger or in a dodgy situation because of a tendency to privatise things.

"But it is a system which has been achieved and gained by this country and changes to it have to be for the best, otherwise they make no sense at all. It is one of the best systems in the world and it would be very sad to lose it."

Dr Guevara, who has previously stated that her father influenced her to train as a doctor, also said coming to talk about the work of her country was important.

The 51-year-old said: "I'm getting older now but I still find it is always beautiful to come and speak about the reality of Cuba, which is often silenced by mainstream media.

"It's crucial that people know what we do. The sharing of information is also very important."

Why Che's daughter fights to preserve his image as idealistic revolutionary

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara with Aleida

The following article appeared in the Observer ahead of Aleida Guevara's 'Remembering Che' tour.

She has the eyes of her father, a gaze that became an emblem for the 20th century. She also has his deep sense of social injustice, but Dr Aleida Guevara has always had to share her "papi" with the world.

While she doesn't mind the posters, the flags, the postcards, graffiti paintings and T-shirts, Dr Guevara and her family are trying to clamp down on "disrespectful" uses of her father's famous photo, taken by Alberto Korda in 1960. Not easy when it is the most reproduced image in the world.

"It's not so easy, we do not want to control the image or make money from it, but it is hard when it's exploited," Dr Guevara smiles. "Sometimes people know what he stands for, sometimes not. Mostly I think it is used well, as a symbol for resistance, against repression."

Che on a bikini was one they couldn't stop, but Che, a teetotaller, on a vodka bottle was a battle won for the family with the help of the UK Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

Next month marks the 45th anniversary of the killing of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the guerrilla who helped lead the Cuban revolution and became an icon of rebellion. This year is also the 50th anniversary of the US "blockade", the ongoing commercial, trade and travel embargo which has stifled Cuba's economy. The cold war era-style standoff still sees America spend millions beaming propaganda radio and TV stations into Cuba. Cubans remain the only immigrants the US encourages in with automatic citizenship.

An underdeveloped country offering world-class education and healthcare for all, Cuba maintains anti-dissident policies, imprisoning journalists and anti-government activists. Despite a mass prison release of dissidents in 2011, Cuban authorities, says Amnesty International, "do not tolerate any criticism of state policies outside the official mechanisms established under government control. Laws on 'public disorder', 'dangerousness' and 'aggression' are used to prosecute government opponents. No political or human rights organisations are allowed to obtain legal status."

Dr Guevara is in the UK for another anniversary, the 14th year since the Miami Five – spies entrusted with infiltrating anti-Castro terrorist groups operating from Florida – were jailed by the US. The 51-year-old Havana paedriatician will lead an evening vigil in London outside the US embassy on 18 September. "I'm not political," she insists, "but I care about injustice."

Aleida was seven when Che was killed in a remote Bolivian hamlet by a group of Bolivian soldiers and CIA operatives. With only shadowy memories of her father, she has got to know him through his diaries and the reminiscences of others, including the man she calls "Uncle" – Fidel Castro.

"Fidel has told me many beautiful stories about my father, but I cannot ask him too much, he still gets very emotional at the thought of Che. For example, my father had terrible handwriting, so my mother was asked to transcribe his diaries. When Raúl Castro came to our house to collect the manuscript, my mother knew that Raúl and Fidel also kept diaries, so she said 'if there are accounts in the diaries that differ then you must go with Che's, because he is not here to defend himself'. Raúl got very angry and said 'No, while Fidel and I are alive, Che is alive. He is always with us.' They were crying then.

"If Che hadn't died in Bolivia, he would have died in Argentina trying to change things there," she says. "Maybe it would be a different continent today. My mother always says that if my father had lived we would all have been better human beings."

Che was a medical student in Argentina when, on a motorcycle tour around Latin America in 1952, he became incensed by the poverty he saw. He took up political theorising and then arms, joining the revolution that overthrew Cuba's vicious Batista regime.

It was then, as the middle class and wealthy fled Cuba for Miami, that a bitter chasm opened between the two nations, and it has deepened from president to president. The promise of President Obama to tackle the Cuban issue has come to nothing so far. "We had great hopes, but we are disappointed in Obama, maybe things have even got worse for us," Dr Guevara says.

Revolution, she believes, simmers on in Latin America, where the gulf between rich and poor is escalating and she blames, as Che did, creeping American-led industrialisation. "This economic crisis is even more dangerous than any before for Latin America. It's not only about oil now, the US want water too. Brazil is destroying its rainforest to mine out iron, Mexico is a dumping ground for unwanted waste. This time the land is being destroyed as well."

Critics of Che claim the photogenic young man in battle fatigues who wrote poetry overshadows the brutality of his revolution. Guevara showed no qualms about killing. "It was a revolution," says his daughter. "Of course, I would rather there was no bloodshed but that is the nature of revolution. In a true revolution you have to get what you want by force. An enemy who doesn't want to give you what you want? Maybe you have to take it. My father knew the risk he took with his own life.

"I was angry, of course, growing up without a dad, but my mother always says, love your father for who he was, a man who had to do what he did. My father died defending his ideals. Up to the last minute he was true to what he believed in. This is what I admire."

But she says she would like to have been able to argue with him. "When I was six he sent me a letter. In it he said I should be good and help my mother with household chores. I was angry because my brother's letter said 'I will take you to the moon' and my other brother's read 'We will go and fight imperialism together'. I was annoyed – I wanted to go to the moon, why couldn't I fight imperialism?"

Dr Guevara is the eldest of Che's four children with his second wife, Aleida. "We didn't have privileges growing up as Che's children. My colleagues didn't know who I was until I first talked on Cuban TV in 1996. But it's important not to keep silent, because there is injustice being wrought."

Che Guevara's doctor daughter coming back to Derby

Preview of Aleida Guevara’s visit to Derby as part of ‘Remembering Che’ tour as appeared in the Derby Telegraph.

THE daughter of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara is to visit Derby for the second time in three years.

Dr Aleida Guevara works as a doctor of children's medicine and is taking part in a national workshop for health professionals in the city on September 11.

She will be speaking about the role Cuban doctors perform working overseas. There are 20,000 doctors in more than 70 different countries worldwide.

In 2009, she also took part in an international workshop on children's health and medicine at the then Derby City General Hospital and praised the NHS, describing it as "one of the best healthcare systems in the world".

Imti Choonara, professor in child health at the University of Nottingham and based at Derbyshire Children's Hospital, said: "I am delighted that Aleida Guevara was happy to come to Derby again.

"The university's academic division of child health has strong links with Cuba and has published joint research together looking at the side effects of medicines in children. It also has a bilateral agreement with the University of Havana and joint workshops are frequently held between the two universities."

The Marketing of Yoani Sánchez: Translation as invention

This article originally appeared in Spanish at TLAXCALA.

As one might have expected, Bloomberg and Reuters dutifully shaded their reports on the recent visit to Cuba of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff with mentions of the Yoani Sánchez Twitter campaign to pressure Rousseff to intercede on Sánchez’s behalf and persuade the Cuban government to grant her an exit visa to attend a propaganda event in Brazil.

That’s not so surprising. Sánchez is an egomaniac, for sure, insisting that anyone should care in the first place, when her compatriots Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez O’Connor have been denied entry visas by the United States for more than a decade to visit their husbands (Rene González Sehwerert and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, two of the Cuban Five) unjustly imprisoned in the U.S. – but if all she has to do is tweet and the press come running, judging the tweet as equal in value to Rousseff’s criticisms of the U.S. gulag at Guantánamo, well, that’s not really her fault – it’s just part of a marketing plan that counts on press complicity.

The interesting thing about this particular tweet however, was the way that the English language press went above and beyond simple translation and repetition, entering the realm of treacherous pure invention. It’s hard to tell where the invention originated though, since both Bloomberg and Reuters used the same “mistranslation” – nearly word for word.

Matthew Bristow and Cris Valerio, reporting for Bloomberg, wrote it this way:

The 36-year-old Sanchez, a critic of Castro’s government on a blog called Generation Y, referred to Rousseff’s persecution by Brazil’s 1964-1985 dictatorship in her appeal for a visa to attend a screening in Salvador of a documentary she appears in. Sanchez has been blocked from traveling abroad for the past four years.

“I saw a photo of young Dilma, sitting on a bench blindfolded as men accused her,” Sanchez wrote Jan. 24 on Twitter. “I feel that way right now.”

Jeff Franks, for Reuters, wrote:

Last week, Sanchez wrote on Twitter that she had seen a photograph of “young Dilma, sitting on a bench blindfolded as men accused her. I feel that way now.”

A compelling image, for sure. A young blindfolded woman, harassed by barking men. Compelling, except for the fact that such a photo doesn’t actually exist.

The exact words from Sánchez’s tweet were:

#cuba Vi foto de @Dilmabr joven sentada en banquillo de los acusados y juzgada por hombres con la cara tapada. Yo me siento asi mismo ahora

An accurate translation might have been:

“I saw a photo of the young Dilma seated in the dock for the accused and being judged by men who were covering their faces. That’s how I feel right now.”

Specifically, the mistranslation repeated by Bloomberg and Reuters interpreted the Spanish verb tapar, which means to cover, as vendar, which means to blindfold. It’s hardly an innocent error given the circumstances of a military trial. But the altered meaning is even worse in English, given that it’s not the accusing judges who are described as “covering their faces,” but Dilma Rousseff who is portrayed as “blindfolded.”

Not to mention Sánchez’s weak grammar in the original Spanish which begs for correction. Even the Spanish language press couldn’t resist retouching the tweet. Here’s how Argentina’s La Nacion fixed it:

“Vi la foto de Dilma sentada en el banco de los acusados y siendo juzgada por hombres que se tapan la cara. Yo me siento así ahora”

(Still well under 140 characters in case anyone thinks the original bad grammar was due to Twitter restrictions.)

And here is the photo. No blindfolded Dilma. Two men in military uniforms shielding their faces from the camera with their hands.

Thanks to WikiLeaks, we’ve known for some time that Sánchez’s “interview” with Barack Obama was actually produced by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, not by Sánchez. How is it that a Cuban blogger can count on such teamwork – a superpower’s diplomatic staff at her disposal and a press that edits and refines her tweets?

So who really dug into the archives for the Rousseff photo and prompted the conflation of Cuba’s immigration office and Brazil’s military dictatorship, through a translation designed to sharpen that conflation and render Sánchez’s plight even more poignant and tragic?

Marketing has always recognized the ancient law of contiguity as an essential concept: as human beings we have the tendency to associate ideas or images with the ideas or images that immediately precede them, and therefore the martyrdom evoked by the characterization of a blindfolded Dilma Rousseff harassed by vociferous Brazilian military men is not accidental, but a deliberate selection to create the effect for the reader that Yoani Sánchez is the new martyr for our time. Keep in mind that most readers will accept at face value the translation proffered by the media and will not bother to look up the photo.

Who’s behind it all? Bets, anyone?