Cuban slave doctors presently in Luanda, Angola denounced that they spent Christmas without receiving pay for their services from the Cuban communist regime, the independent outlet 14 y Medio reported on Thursday.
Slave doctors in Angola, the outlet detailed, accused the company responsible for their payment of “stealing” the U.S. dollars they are supposed to receive as income. In a heated two-hour meeting in Luanda, they said: “We don’t want virtual money; they’re scamming us.”
For decades, the Castro regime has signed so-called “medical mission” deals with several nations around the world that have seen thousands of Cuban slave doctors shipped to the respective countries to carry out healthcare work in exchange for a minimal fraction of what those countries would normally pay for their labor — with the Cuban communist regime pocketing the majority of their wages.
The “medical missions” scheme is one of the main funding sources for the Castro regime, which then utilizes the proceeds to fund its brutally repressive apparatus at home. Slave doctors sent abroad are forced to work under inhumane conditions, are subjected to strict forms of control, and those who defect from the program are banned from returning to their own country for at least eight years under penalty of prison.
The purported “efficacy” of the health program has been widely called into question, with former slave doctors testifying to “treating” fake patients, destroying medication, and forging statistics to make the program seem more productive than it is.
14 y Medio and other Cuba-focused outlets described Angola as one of the Cuban regime’s historic recipients of slave doctors and as a relevant source of income for the ruling communists.
Angola is also one of the destinations where Cuban slave doctors are subjected to the strictest forms of control. Leaked contracts revealed in August that the contracts of the slave doctors sent to Angola contain numerous restrictive clauses such as wage retention, passport confiscation, private life limitations, and an “explicit commitment of political loyalty to the regime.”
14 y Medio explained on Thursday that, as is the case with other “medical mission” agreements, the slave doctor deal with Angola is managed by Antex, one of the many subsidiaries of the Cuban military’s GAESA holding company conglomerate.
The outlet stressed that many of the slave doctors spent December without having received their meager wages and without any minimal guarantees to at least schedule a temporary return to Cuba for the holidays.
Although the leaked contract reportedly establishes that every slave doctor will receive a monthly wage of $950, each worker ultimately only receives the equivalent of $200 in Angolan kwanza at an exchange rate set by Antex — the rest is withhold at an Antex-controlled bank account in Cuba, who may use it to cover “compensation” or “disciplinary measures.”
“This Christmas will be a bit more painful,” An unnamed Cuban slave doctor in Angola told 14 y Medio. “It’s become customary for Antex to delay payments. Normally, salaries arrived around the 20th, but that’s now just a memory.”
The unnamed doctor confirmed to 14 y Medio that each slave doctor only receives $200 worth of local currency every month, and detailed that Antex had asserted that it was “very likely” that it would only be able to pay half of the amount — but, days later, the company then claimed it could only pay $50.
“If that’s the case, they would have to guarantee us a New Year’s Eve dinner, at least, but I doubt they will,” the doctor said.
14 y Medio detailed that the doctor’s remarks coincides with other complaints that reached the outlet in recent days of Cuban slave doctors in Angola denouncing delays in their payments, opaque deductions, and obstacles to access vacation time. The outlet stressed that the situation not only persists, but is “worsening in a context of local inflation, rising food prices, and weakening purchasing power of wages.”
The “chronic delay” in return trips to Cuba for slave doctor vacations, the outlet stressed, further adds to the doctor’s economic uncertainty woes. 14 y Medio explained that many of the slave doctors expected to return to their country between August and September but that schedule was “almost completely disrupted.”
The situation has left an increasing number of doctors who have been in Angola for over 15 months with no clear return date, effectively turning the wait into a “forced extension” of their contracts. The unnamed doctor, however, stressed to the outlet that, “There’s always a manager who does leave on the scheduled date.”
“The impact of these failures goes beyond the economic sphere. For many, the mission in Angola was presented as an opportunity to improve their income, help their families in Cuba, and accumulate savings,” 14 y Medio said.
“However, wage arrears and travel restrictions have turned that expectation into frustration. Christmas, with its symbolic significance, accentuates the feeling of abandonment,” the outlet continued. “With no money in hand and no certainty of return, even basic gestures — buying a gift, preparing a special meal, connecting with family — become difficult.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. State Department issued U.S. visa restrictions on Cuban regime officials and officials from other nations that have engaged in the slave doctor scheme — a measure that, the Cuban regime claimed in late September, constitutes “discrimination.”
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