Abstract
The end of the Cold War has introduced important transformations including the practice of humanitarian aid that adjusted to the new world order. The general tendencies of the ‘contemporary humanitarianism’ are well discussed in the scientific literature. Since 1959, Cuba has developed its internationalism policy and has created a post-disaster brigade relief in the late 1990s. However, the subject has been little studied. The objective of this article is to analyze the Cuban humanitarian practices, values and framework in comparison with the contemporary tendency that appears since the end of the Cold War. Based on interviews led with Cubancooperantesand a review of scientific literature, the study proposes that the Cuban post-relief internationalism is profoundly linked with the particular context in which it was created, but it is also functioning in a specific way in practice.
Highlights
The end of the Cold War has introduced important transformations including the practice of humanitarian aid that adjusted to the new world order
The turn of the 1990s marked significant changes at the international level introduced by the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and International Journal of Cuban Studies 8.2 Winter 2016 the establishment of a new world order under the aegis of the United States
The use of the ideal type was found appropriate to address the general trends in how humanitarianism and internationalism operate in the field within a context of crisis
Summary
During my interviews with Cuban doctors, most of them explained the actual internationalist policy of their country by the fact that Cuba ‘was born’ because of the internationalist engagement of soldiers from different countries. Fidel Castro’s government started a vast process of social reforms, which included nationalisation of foreign companies, agrarian reform, organisation of a national alphabetisation campaign, universalisation of health services – building hospitals, training doctors, widespread vaccination – and the adoption of an internationalism foreign policy. Those measures, that some were directly confronting American’s interests in Cuba, led to a deterioration of the relations between the two countries.
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