"Open heart solidarity",

by Elson,Concepción Pérez, Gramma newspaper, page 5, April 11th  1996.

Today the images are different.  Unlike the pain and death seen 10 years ago as a result of the nuclear plant accident in Chernobyl, one may compare the figure of children and adults who have saved their lives thanks to human solidarity. Here in Cuba, over 15 000 people including 13 418 children have received free of charge medical treatment, and mostly important, love and tenderness to make them happy.

According to the highest Ukrainian authorities, our country is the only nation in the world that offers a true effective program of specialized treatment for children affected by Chernobyl accident.

Tarara, which was turned into a reception and medical assistance center for Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian children since April 1990 together with the best specialized medical centers in the Cuban capital, has remained open despite the special period and the difficult economic conditions of the island.

One must see these children at the beach, in the sports and recreational centers, medical care wards or in their houses (those houses that sponsors of the Helms-Burton law claim to be their properties). They smile, play, share with others. They show safe joy. They and their families can observe the improvement of their health conditions. They feel the human warmth of the physician and nurse, the guide, the translator, the teacher, and of hundreds and hundreds of Cubans who express their open heart solidarity towards them, as one Cuban told me.

Recently, I read the letter sent by a Ukrainian girl treated in Cuba to the president of the United States. I remembered her petition to leave Cuba in peace, to put an end to the brutal and unfair blockade, to cease in the endeavour of trying to kill one population and mainly children by resorting to hunger. Of course, the letter was never answered.

The response has been increase of threats, tightening of blockade, and the most surprising campaigns against this kind and solidarity people. How can the US governors understand that a small island, ten thousands of kilometres away from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, has been able to receive and to give medical assistance to these children and even adults when they, which are the symbol of economy and unipolar world, have only invited “some affected young people to visit the United States”? Cuba opened its solidarity heart to help these children and will never shut the doors of friendship and human solidarity for the affected children to grow happy and full of love like the Cuban children.

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