The Guardian 15 February, 2006
Timorese go to Cuba
for medical training
Towards the end of last year East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri paid a visit to Cuba
and held talks with Fidel Castro and other Ministers in the Cuban
Government.
Cuba is to receive another 400 young people from East Timor to be trained as doctors and
teachers.
Castro also announced that a group of 300 Cuban doctors are to travel to East Timor. They will
help train health professionals in Timor and work at the Faculty of Medicine recently opened in
Dili.
Alkatiri said his country's goal was to reach one doctor per thousand inhabitants to reduce the rate
of infant and maternal mortality and diseases and epidemics that have been inherited from
colonialism.
Fidel also announced that two technical experts have gone to Dili to establish the use of the new
literacy method that will allow the rapid teaching of reading and writing in Portuguese in a country
where 50 percent of the population is illiterate.
In discussing the struggle of the Timorese people for independence with Prime Minister Alkatiri,
Fidel Castro recalled the similar struggles of the people on the African continent and informed Mari
Alkatiri of the considerable medical assistance being given by Cuba to many countries of Africa,
South America and the Caribbean.
The Democratic Republic of East Timor has a population of 770,000. Most of its people remain
poor even though it has oil and gas resources. Prime Minister Alkatiri remarked that Cuba showed
what could be done despite having few natural resources.
Acknowledgement to Granma International