Cuba's merits worth noting
Once again, and already becoming a sad practice, I feel obliged to counter the allegations that your newspaper has published against Cuba under the title Cuba's economy is in disastrous shape: Experts (The Jakarta Post,Aug. 9).
Of course, you may argue, that you are just publishing international news reports, without comments whatsoever. But that is not totally so, because there exactly lies the relevance and the seriousness of the job of the editorial policy when a newspaper respects itself.
How come I have not seen a single article about the development of education and scientific research in Cuba, particularly in biotechnology as a result of which we are exporting more than US$100 million a year?
Why does your newspaper think that the coverage of western news agencies is biased when talking of the United States aggression against Iraq but give credit to them when talking about Cuba?
Therefore I find it hard to believe that it is just a normal procedure of selection of an alleged interesting news, when there is no attempt to find a balanced information on the matter in an article that is a character assassination of my country, for which I would be right if I sue your newspaper for its publication, which is not my intention.
When talking about Cuba, you should mention that it is a country with a very high international prestige, already chosen to be the next Chairman of the Non Aligned Movement, a country that is providing to the Third World countries, free of charge, more physicians than the World Health Organization as a whole, a country, where more than 15,000 foreign scholars are studying their university careers (including three Indonesians) free of charge, a country where education and health are free, where child mortality death rate is below 6.5 per 1 000, less than that of the United States, where life expectancy is higher than 75 years old, where there is practically no illiteracy and children are vaccinated when they are born against 13 diseases.
These things and many more could be said about Cuba, and yes, we have economic difficulties like all Third World countries have, but there is a political will to defend the nation and make it advance that makes us proud when we see Cuban doctors awarded by the WHO or UNESCO, considering the Cuban system of education as the best in the Third World, or when our sportsmen are winning an impressive number of medals in the Olympic or Pan-American Games.
A truly worthy journalist and a serious editor may wonder why this is so and would think twice before publishing such a libellous article as the one that has appeared in your newspaper, which frankly speaking makes your publication loose prestige before my eyes and I hope not in the eyes of many others.
MIGUEL RAMMREZ Cuban Ambassador Jakarta