Nine years after his time in Angola, Cuban doctor Emilio Arteaga still recalls it as the worst of the three international missions in which he had worked. He may have purposely blocked out most of his memories, as a «defense mechanism», but has not forgotten the feeling of suffocation, an irreparable loss, and the «militarization of medical practice» as part of the Antillean Exporter Plc. (Antex), the Cuban corporation that hired him as a psychiatrist from 2013 to 2015.
Antex is the operational arm of the Enterprise Administration Group (Gaesa), a business conglomerate of the Cuban Armed Forces, and has been in the African country starting in 1989 when it began to replace Cuban troops with the commercialization of goods and services, as well as the representation of Cuban businesses and institutions abroad. Arteaga was just one of its many thousands of employees.
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«The soldiers will leave one day, but the doctors, (…) the teachers, (…) the collaborators in construction and other spheres of the economy and services of Angola stay on», Fidel Castro said in 1986. Castro was the architect of the «business of solidarity» that today «cultivates» healthcare where he once «planted» weapons. The main mission, more than international aid, is to raise dollars and to garner diplomatic recognition. The handicap is that «it fundamentally depends on the human trafficking scheme», adds Maria Werlau, executive director of the NGO Cuba Archive, based in Miami.
More than 30 000 Cuban professionals provide services in 70 countries, an economic activity that has been the main source of income for the Cuban government since 2005. Angola is the second market—after Venezuela—with the greatest strategic importance for Havana, explains Maria Werlau. There, where Antex concentrates at least 34 % of Cuban aid workers in Africa and 36 % of its doctors abroad, Cuba has managed to «project its political, ideological and military influence in a transcendental postcolonial struggle, while obtaining important benefits», observes Werlau.
The presence of the Cuban army in the African country has evolved since the sixties and solidified with the military intervention in the Angolan civil war from 1975 to 1991 —officially called «Operation Carlota»— after a runaway slave. For Fidel Castro, the African continent was then «imperialism’s weakest link», due to the absence of a robust bourgeoisie that could stop the transition from quasi-tribalism to communism.
In 16 years, Cuba deployed some 300 000 military personnel and 100 000 civilian collaborators, of which more than 2 000 died in the conflict, as per official figures. Likewise, thousands of Cuban and Soviet advisors de facto directed the Angolan ministries of Construction and Housing, Defense, Education, Finance, Transportation, and Foreign Trade, according to a report by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The power of Cuba’s high command in the African nation was exposed after the prosecution for «high treason» and subsequent execution of several army officers, including General Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez —Hero of the Republic of Cuba and head of the military mission in Angola— in 1989. During the trial, it was discovered that Cuba withdrew more than its fallen men from African countries such as Angola. The regime also smuggled ivory and diamonds, while conducting at the same time drug trafficking activities in America to finance military operations.
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Antex, the umbrella company that brings together the commercial network of the Cuban Government in Angola, emerged shortly after the execution of the «traitor» general; in part, to whitewash the image of the island’s military businessmen, who—Cuba Archive estimates— made between 4.8 and 9.6 billion dollars for sending troops to Angola. Since its founding on December 19, 1989[1], the primary objective has been—as per the employment contracts of Cuban workers in that country—«to provide clean, legal and untainted convertible currency for Cuba»; a promise that, as will be shown later on, it has not been able to fulfill either.
The great scam
«Despite being scammed and not even getting 40 % of what one should receive, we try to solve the problem anyway we can», says Maritza, a former Cuban health worker*; she adds: «We are not in solidarity with them [Angolans]; we are opportunists because we seize the opportunity to make money and to obtain, at the cost of the sacrifice of our family and ourselves, what we cannot have in Cuba even if we work our entire life».
That is why Maritza left her children in the care of her family and went to Angola, one of the best-paid international Cuban missions, where health workers like her can earn between 10 and 16 times more than their salary on the island. This makes the economic factor the main incentive for taking part in these contracts. Nonetheless, what they actually earn represents only a small part of what the receiving country pays for their services.
Based on government officials and media reports, since 2012 Angola has paid an average of 5 000 USD to Cuba as a monthly salary for each Cuban professional, although it could reach up to 7 000. The payment is by bank transfer and covers 12 months, a total of 60 000 USD. Angola’s local authorities must also provide Cuban workers with furnished accommodation with air conditioning and Internet, as well as the costs of services for the supply of «water, electricity, and fuel for domestic use», details a 2021 study on Cuban medical recruitment. That is, Cuba does not incur expenses of this kind.
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Rough calculations based on the 30 131 contractors accounted for from 2012 to 2023, as per official figures, show that Antex has received around 1 808 million USD from Angola for the payment of salaries to Cuban professionals in the last 12 years.
Testimonies, reports, and employee contracts indicate that, at least from 2005 to 2014, the military-owned company paid monthly salaries of between 200 and 685 USD to Cuban technicians and professionals in the fields of Education, Medicine, and Culture.
Antex payments did not follow the salary scale from 630 to 1 200 USD USD that, as early as 1977, Angola set for Cuban graduates of technical and university careers, according to the Special Cooperation Agreement that guided the relations between both countries in matters of Compensated Technical Assistance.
By 2015, the collapse of oil prices and the subsequent devaluation of the Angolan kwanza caused the cost of living to become unbearable. According to Cuban collaborator Armando Valenzuela, a design professor at Huila’s Polytechnic Institute during 2015-2016, «sometimes there were problems with payment, it was delayed or they hardly paid anything». In theory, Valenzuela earned 500 USD per month, which was 100 less than the salary of art historian Anamely Ramos.
Of the total, a maximum of 200 was the actual amount they got paid in cash. «A pittance», said Ramos. «The zungueiras—the women who roam the streets selling products they carry on their heads—and housekeeping staff earned more than us», she added, in reference to the Cuban collaborators.
Armando Valenzuela. Huila, Angola, 2015. Courtesy of Valenzuela
In addition to the frustration over the living expenses, «modern slavery» allegations started to build up from Cuban doctors in Brazil. The situation, Arteaga reasons, led to a salary increase that year. The psychiatrist began earning 1 000 USD per month, a 360 increase from his 2013 salary when he arrived in Angola. The economic factor, he clarifies, is one of the incentives to participate in the mission.
«We always leave Cuba with the idea of making money, hoping that they’d pay us more. They never tell you how much the actual salary is unti