Guyana needed to negotiate future of Cuban doctors with US, balance foreign policy on Cuba – PNCR Leader

Last Updated on Sunday, 15 March 2026, 14:24 by Writer

Guyana should have negotiated the working conditions of Cuban healthcare workers to allay United States’ (US) concerns, and at the same time ensure that its foreign policy with the American government cuts across Democrat and Republican administrations, People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Leader, Aubrey Norton said at the weekend.

Emphasising that helping the Cubans “doesn’t make you anti-American,” he said. Assuming that the stated position is the real position, he said the Guyana government could have engaged the United States to negotiate a solution.

“I believe if the Guyana government had taken a proper approach and deal with this matter as a proper foreign policy issue, they would have engaged the American government to say to them, ‘look, we hear you on this question of the Cuban government utilizing a lot of the resources but could we find a midway point in which we probably work to ensure that Cuban doctors get more so that the issue of concern to you is dealt with,'” said Mr Norton, a former foreign service officer who had spearheaded several negotiations on behalf of Guyana.

The US had warned Caribbean and other countries that government officials and their immediate family members could be stripped of their tourist visas if they continued to access the services of the Cuban Medical Brigade on grounds that the scheme amounted to labour exploitation and trafficking in persons.

The US believed that the bulk of payments was going to the Cuban government instead of the health sector workers.

Guyana has since cancelled the programme and opted to hire the Cuban doctors directly.

Noting that Cuba had provided doctors and other health sector personnel for several decades, Mr Norton declared that Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean were duty bound to assist that communist-ruled island.

“In my opinion, therefore, we have some kind of a moral obligation to help the Cubans,” said Mr Norton, a Cuban-trained political scientist.

He also told a news conference that Guyana needed to bear in mind the collective interests of small states like Guyana and Cuba, while at the same time recognising the importance of support by the powerful US in pushing back against Venezuela’s aggressive claim to the mineral and forest-rich Essequibo Region.

While Guyana welcomes and appreciates US support in dealing with the Guyana-Venezuela territorial controversy, he cautioned that this country should not sacrifice Cuba. “We should never put ourselves in a position where we become part and parcel of a mechanism that seeks to starve and destroy the Cuban society,” he said.

Since American forces captured and renditioned Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to the US for trial on drugs and weapons charges, the US has shut down Caracas’ oil supplies to Cuba, forcing the country to go without electricity and severely curtailing international flights.

Medical and waste collection services have also been disrupted due to a lack of fuel.

Mr Norton, who is also chairman of the parliamentary opposition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), said Guyana, as a small state, was vulnerable. Against that backdrop, he cited the need for solidarity among small states rather than a fracturing of relations like what has been done with Cuba. “To give up on the Cubans in the fashion we would have done doesn’t speak a lot for us as a country that is a small state that is vulnerable,” he said.

Amid speculation by political pundits that Donald Trump’s Republican administration could lose its slim control over the Senate and the House of Representatives, the PNCR-APNU leader looked ahead and suggested that probably in another three years “you will be in a different position.” As a result, he recommended that Guyana positions itself pragmatically.

“One, therefore, has to structure their foreign policy so that it is applicable across the board in various seasons,” he said.

He flayed the Irfaan Ali-led administration for failing Guyanese by taking its version of a pragmatic position that could affect Guyanese in the future. “I do believe that there’s a failure of the government to engage, negotiate, and protect our interests because our interest also lies in us having the expertise and the support from the Cuban system to facilitate and help our health system,” he said.