De facto authorities in Bolivia, on the afternoon of July 21, publicly reported that the building known as the “Clinica del Colaborador,” owned by the Republic of Cuba, which was violently raided by police on November 15, 2019, would be made available, in the next few days, to treat Bolivian citizens with COVID-19.

This unilateral decision, which is presented as a humanitarian act, constitutes a violation of the rights of the Republic of Cuba as the legal owner of the aforementioned property, preceded by disregard for international law and an incessant campaign of lies and distortions about Cuba, particularly directed against the medical cooperation that our country provided in Bolivia, a campaign that this Ministry denounced in a statement, January 25, 2020.

It must be recalled that, in November of 2019, Bolivian authorities, with the leadership and support of the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, arrested several Cuban health collaborators under false pretenses and conducted searches and raids of their homes, while publicly inciting violence against our health personnel. This campaign has not stopped and is being used for internal electoral purposes.

The facility occupied by the Clinica del Colaborador was purchased and expanded by the Cuban State, in strict compliance with Bolivian law. It is located at 163 22nd Street, on the corner of Enrique Herson in the Achumani area of the city of La Paz. In accordance with Resolution 0410 of April 4, 2007, the Bolivian Ministry of Health, in accordance with the powers conferred by Act No. 3351 of February 21, 2006, the Ministry authorized the operation of the center to provide care for Cuban professionals working in the health and education sectors in the country.

The facility includes a 2-story house and a 3-story building. The small facility has 13 hospital beds, 6 for inpatient cases, 4 for observation and 3 for intensive care. It was one of the 158 health facilities where, by virtue of the 1985 Scientific-Technical Cooperation Agreement in the area of health between the governments of Cuba and Bolivia, and its subsequent updates, 18,015 Cuban health professionals offered the sister Bolivian people 73,557,935 medical consultations, performed 1, 533,016 surgeries, of which 727,138 were ophthalmological, and assisted 60,792 births. As part of this collaboration, 5,184 young Bolivians have graduated from medical school in our country.

In Bolivia, Cuba’s health collaborators provided their services in 34 Community Integral Hospitals, 119 Community Integral Centers and 5 ophthalmologic centers, in nine departments, 28 provinces and 42 municipalities in the country.

Since the above-mentioned raid, Bolivian authorities have arbitrarily denied personnel from the Cuban embassy access to the Clinica del Colaborador.

The Cuban government has demanded the immediate restoration of its rights as the legitimate owner of the aforementioned property, through diplomatic notes No. 1079/20, from the Republic of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Relations, April 13, 2020; and No. 26/20, dated June 18, 2020, from the Cuban embassy in La Paz, respectively, to which no response has been received

We have attentively followed the tragic events the sister people of Bolivia are facing, suffering more than 60,000 SARS-COV-2 infections and more than 2,000 deaths from COVID-19, according to official data. Bolivia’s health system has not been able effectively confront the pandemic, and is on the verge of collapse. Unfortunately, doctors and health workers have been infected and died, among them several young Bolivian graduates of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Cuba, who have honorably done their duty.

In this context, many Bolivian organizations and citizens have addressed Cuba, both publicly and privately, requesting support from Cuban health personnel and medicines that have proved effective with COVID-19 patients. Many have noted the contribution that would have been made by the Cuban Medical Brigade that was providing services in Bolivia before the coup, if it had been present.

The generous Cuban people have not renounced their altruistic vocation. Aware that the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic requires urgent joint efforts of cooperation and solidarity and, without relinquishing ownership of the Clinica del Colaborador property or our rights as the legitimate owner, the Cuban government makes its use available to the sister Bolivian people to assist COVID-19 patients, as long as the crisis situation generated by this pandemic continues in Bolivia.

Havana, July 23, 2020.

Police arrested protesters during the Occupy Wall Street march. (Anjali Mullany/News)

Thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday, shutting down car lanes and setting up yet another tense showdown with the NYPD.

Roughly 500 people were arrested after standing in the roadway, blocking the Brooklyn-bound lanes. Traffic in the opposite direction was slowed — but still running after the 4 p.m. standoff.

An army of cops swooped in after the demonstrators took over the bridge’s pedestrian walkway and flooded onto the car lanes heading to Brooklyn. The showdown halted traffic on the bridge for nearly three hours.

While some of the protesters claimed cops set a trap for them, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne insisted the arrests came after the demonstrators were warned multiple times to stay off the roadway.

“Some complied and took the walkway without being arrested,” Browne said. “Others proceeded on the Brooklyn-bound vehicular roadway. The latter were arrested.”

The march started from Zuccotti Park, the homebase for the two-week old protest against corporate excess.
When demonstrators reached the base of the span, a bottleneck formed and many started marching up the pedestrian walkway.

Others walked straight onto the roadway, and several climbed down from the walkway moments later to join them.

“We were supposed to go up the pedestrian roadway,” said Robert Cammiso, a 48-year-old student from Brooklyn.

“There was a huge funnel, a bottleneck, and we couldn’t fit. People jumped from the walkway onto the roadway. We thought the roadway was open to us.”

After allowing some of the protesters to cross, officers trapped some 400 on the bridge using orange nets and vehicles – and started slapping cuffs on them.

Police called in NYPD and MTA buses to haul away the handcuffed demonstrators.

Some of the protestors managed to elude arrest by climbing from the roadway to the pedestrian walkway.

“[The cops] were respectful,” Cammiso said. “They were as good as they can be. They were doing their job.”

Not everyone agreed with that assessment. Etan Ben-Ami, 54, said it seemed the NYPD laid a trap for the protesters.

“It seemed as if they deliberately moved back to allow people onto the roadway,” said Ben-Ami, a psychotherapist from Brooklyn.

By 5 p.m., protesters clogged both the walkway and Brooklyn-bound car lanes. Just after 6 p.m., some of the protesters moved to the Manhattan Bridge.

At one point, about another 100 protesters marched from Zuccotti Park and gathered outside City Hall with 200 others who had scampered off the bridge. The mass of protesters faced down a wall of cops blocking the bridge, chanting,

“Whose streets? Our streets” and “Let them go.”

The arrests marked the second Saturday in a row protesters landed in cuffs.

Last week, cops arrested more than 80 people near Union Square. During that roundup, Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna doused a handful of women with pepper spray – spawning a video clip that helped embolden the movement.

NYPD Internal Affairs and the Civilian Complaint Review Board are probing the incident.

Police arrested protesters during the Occupy Wall Street march. (Anjali Mullany/News)