A post from the Cuban Medical Brigade in Venezuela, celebrating with triumphant phrases the return of a group of collaborators to the Island, seems to mark the beginning of a larger movement that Havana is trying to present as “planned,” but is occurring at the worst moment for the Cuban-Chavista alliance.
After the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) confirmed the repatriation of some medical personnel deployed in Venezuela, attributing it to the "resumption of flights" after the closure of airspace during the American attacks.
However, the announcement refrained from providing figures and omitted details on how many professionals will remain in Venezuelan territory. Is this a routine rotation or a forced withdrawal? Is Havana discreetly evacuating its personnel in light of the new political scenario?
Questions are increasing in response to the official silence and pressure from Washington, which has demanded that interim president Delcy Rodríguez remove Cuban personnel associated with both security and medical services from the country, as part of a broader plan to reduce foreign influence in the state apparatus.
For two decades, the Cuba-Venezuela Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement, signed by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, allowed the Cuban regime to obtain billions of dollars in oil and foreign currency in exchange for sending tens of thousands of healthcare professionals.
But the capture of Maduro, the reconfiguration of power in Caracas, and Rodríguez's rapprochement with the United States threaten to dismantle that mechanism, which has been one of the main sources of income for the Cuban state.
While the MINSAP speaks of "duty fulfilled" and "mission accomplished," testimonies from cooperators collected by Diario de Cuba and other independent media reveal a very different reality: fear, confinement, activated evacuation protocols, and orders of silence.
Havana seeks to project calm, but its heroic rhetoric no longer disguises the fragility of its position. If medical cooperation is reduced or canceled, Cuba will lose one of its most profitable economic pillars, at a time of extreme scarcity and internal social discontent.
Beyond the images of white coats and flags, the return of doctors from Venezuela could be marking the beginning of the end of an era: that of "proletarian internationalism" turned into a business, and that of Chavista oil sustaining the economy of the Island.
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