Taking Lessons from Fidel: A New Vision for Poverty in Latin America

With the retirement of Fidelito, an assessment of the positives and negatives of the Cuban Revolution has taken place in media all around the world. People hate Castro as much as others love him, mainly because while he has injured many and denied basic rights to activists living in Cuba, he has also earned the respect of others by standing up to the United States and living long enough to brag about it. While this perspective dominates most of the globe, in Latin America there is a third dimension to Cuba. Success with specific social policies places Cuba in high regard in the areas of healthcare as well as anti-poverty policies in comparison to the rest of Latin America. Latin America is considered by many as the most unequal region in the world between the wealthy and the poor, accounting on an average 35-45% or higher of the population of the region living below the poverty line. Cuba on the other hand is well known in the region for having a less severe poverty than its neighbors. Cuban doctors and institutions are the regions best in many areas of medicine and medical research. These pros and cons of Castro's Cuba has created the divided impression of the outcomes of the Cuban Revolution, especially among Latin America's poor and those who have had to overcome multiple economic crisis in almost every country in the region since the 1960s.

Taking from the pages of Castro's policies, Hugo Chavez is seeking to expand his support beyond those struggling to live in Venezuela towards others in the region. While Chavez has an amicable working relationship with most of his neighbors, his reputation in recent events has taken a beating. While he did help rescue kidnapped Colombians from the FARC, he also accused Colombia of plotting his assassination. He even angered the King of Spain who is considered a hero by many in a conference in Spain and few months ago, being told to bluntly "shut up" as recorded on Spanish TV by the King. Chavez also lost much of the support of his own people, losing in a referendum to solidify his power in Venezuela in recent weeks.

This week the International Herald Tribune did a story on Venezuela's "Mission Miracle", where Chavez for the last four years has sought to put the oil revenues of the recent boom to good use by giving free eye surgery to many who cannot afford in throughout Latin America. In many countries in Latin America the social heath care system leaves much to be desired, with private care and insurance covering many upper classes and leaving those who cannot afford it the inability to get more expensive treatments in the social health system. The issue of access to health care is currently a major one in the US election and could spark an election in Canada, a country which shares many attributes of socialized medicine but often cannot afford to treat many for complicated surgeries in good time as is the issue in Latin America. In the region, the same problems are exacerbated ten-fold with more than half of the population in some countries unable to access newer forms of treatments for the majority of their families. For this reason Chavez' has gone to bring those in from all over the region to receive eye treatment which is often not as evasive as other surgeries and which allows people to maintain their vision, a vital necessity in a part of the world where people often have only themselves to keep them afloat. Newer and simple eye treatments are very expensive, but it is a simple way to cure the worries of many impoverished and ill patients all over Latin America.

In reality the support for Chavez comes from one hard reality in Latin America. Poverty and populism often comes together in one form or another, and if you seek to deal with issues on poverty you will always get a lot of support, no matter how tactless you many seem in dealing with the international community. While Fidel often had a lot more finesse than Chavez, many leaders in the region give Hugo a wide breadth because they know that poverty in the region is a never-ending problem and no one really knows how to solve it. With democratization in the region comes the power of voting, and people in dire straits will do what is best for their own personal liveseven if Chavez never shuts up and loses more tact in the future, people will vote for the person who will address their personal concerns in Latin America and in the next few elections throughout the Americas.