20 Convertibles Pesos 2006, Cuba
| in Krause book | Number: FX50 |
| Years of issue: | 18.12.2006 |
| Edition: | -- |
| Signatures: | Presidente del Banco: Francisco Soberon Valdes |
| Serie: | Convertibles Pesos |
| Specimen of: | 18.12.2006 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 150 х 70 |
| Printer: | Los Talleres de Grabado en Acero y Timbre del Estado de La Habana, STC-P |
* All pictures marked 
are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.
Description
Watermark:
Security strip with a repeating microprinted "Patria o Muerte - Venceremos" passes to the right of center. Banknote protected by a watermark in the form of a portrait of José Martí and the number 20. Ideal composite image pentagonal star on both sides. At a certain angle, the letters BNC can be readable. Microtext glows under ultraviolet.
Avers:
The monument to Camilo Gorriarán located in museum of Yaguajay, Sancti Spiritus Province, Cuba.
Author of the sculpture - Cuban painter, sculptor and writer Thelvia Marin Mederos.
The museum was opened at 28 of October 1989 by order of Raul Castro.
The Mausoleum, opened on October 28th, 2009, holds the remains of the 44 fighters of the Antonio Maceo Column and other rebel forces operating in northern Las Villas, who died during the revolutionary struggle, or afterwards.
The Museo Camilo Cienfuegos in Yaguajay is a very impressive monument to the Cuban hero Camilo Ciefuegos. You can't miss this one. Beneath the monument is a museum dedicated to the achievements of Camilo. It has also the stuffed horse, on which Camilo entered Havana after the Cuban Revolutution, and the copy of makeshift tank.
The museum and the monument were opened in Yaguajay, because of the following historical event:
Cienfuegos and Guevara's two columns reached the central provinces, where they joined efforts with several other groups. Cienfuegos's column fought the Battle of Yaguajay in December and, after a fight, forced the garrison to surrender on December 30, 1958. This earned him the nickname "The Hero of Yaguajay".
Camilo’s force, which had been swelled by local farmers and peasants, reached the small army garrison at Yaguajay in December of 1958 and besieged it. There were about 250 soldiers inside, under the command of Cuban-Chinese captain Abon Ly. Camilo attacked the garrison but was repeatedly driven back. He even tried putting together a makeshift tank out of a tractor and some iron plates, but that didn’t work either. Eventually, the garrison ran out of food and ammunition and surrendered on December 30.
With Yaguajay captured, Cienfuegos's column was able to advance against Santa Clara in conjunction with Guevara's forces, and the other non-Castro forces from the Escambray front. Together, the two columns captured Santa Clara on December 31, most of the defending soldiers gave up without shooting. Batista fled Cuba the next day, and the guerrillas were victorious.
On background is pattern from flowers.
In top right corner are five Braille dots for visually impaired.
Denominations are in lower left and top right corners, also centered.
Revers:
Operacion Milagro - Operation Milagro.
On banknote: Ophthalmological center, patients arriving by plane, surgeons at work.
Operación Milagro (English: Operation Miracle; also Acción Milagro) is a program of international solidarity launched in 2004 by the governments of Cuba and Venezuela to provide free medical treatment for people with eye problems in the two countries and 34 others in the Global South. It is integrated into the programs of the ALBA.
While in the inicial stage of the program patients were transported to Cuba to be attended there, now there are 49 ophthalmological centers in 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries carrying out vision-saving and restoring surgery. The Cuban government has also sent physicians to Pakistan, Indonesia and Angola. In its first ten years, the program has benefitted more than three million people.
More than three million patients across the world, especially in Latin America, have benefited from the Operation Milagro created on July 8, 2004 by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.
Venezuelan Gabriela Soler, national coordinator of this program, which has restored the sight to so many people for free, noted that these figures are due to the quick increase after the initiative was given a new official thrust last June.
Soler said that the second phase comprises of the installation of optics and workshops to carve crystals or lenses, new equipment for some of the surgical centres, a plan to continue to train ophthalmologists and opticians in Venezuela, the establishment of a statistics centre to register the patients’ pathology and those who are prone to undergo eye surgery, among other measures.
In addition, 22 hospitals in Venezuela are expected to serve as pilot headquarters of the operation in this second phase. The goal of this program is to also provide attention to the criminal population in penitentiaries, disabled people who have not been registered and indigenous inhabitants in their regions.
The social program not only includes surgery, but also implies the supply of corrective lenses, inquiries to add people with visual disabilities and a project to prevent eye problems.
The most common health conditions under treatment by the ophthalmologists through these nine years are: cataracts, pterygium, glaucoma and strabismus.
In the act of re-launching the operation, celebrated two months ago, Venezuela’s Executive Vice-president Jorge Arreaza, said that this project, which will entail giving more attention to the African people without reducing the number of patients from Latin America and countries of the ALBA under medical attention, will be under the rectorship of Virginia, Hugo Chavez’ daughter.
The Vice-president praised the professionalism of the Cuban health personnel, which has been the heart of this operation, considered a pride and joy for Commanders Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.
The Operation Milagro, created in 2004 to treat Venezuelan patients in Cuba, spread to Latin America and across the planet when in August 2005 Fidel and Chavez signed the Sandino Pledge in both countries to assist six million people within ten years - especially from the Third World- with different visual difficulties. (Osviel Castro Medel)
"More than 400,000 Haitians treated through Operación Milagro"
The mobile Operation Miracle’s move to Saint Antoine Hospital in this department capital city will benefit the 425,000 primarily rural residents of Grand’Anse, located in Haiti’s southeastern region.
The new service, offered free of charge, is projected to provide assistance over the next three months throughout the region where glaucoma and corneal foreign bodies are abundant, according to ophthalmologist José René Reynando, head of the nine-member itinerant brigade.
“We stay in each department three months, attempting to treat and address all the needs of residents who arrive at the ophthalmology center. We also survey and monitor cases in remote areas with our mobile clinics on weekends,” he explained to Granma.
Dr. Jorge Casas, head of the Cuban Medical Brigade in Grand’Anse emphasized the importance of free ophthalmological care to low income residents, saying, “This service is not available through the public heath system in the department.”
The medical equipment which was transported by helicopter to Jérémie from Gonaives, where the group was working previously, consists of a surgical unit, a clinical laboratory and optometric instruments.
The work room was set up by Cuban electro-medical specialists in less than four hours and began functioning within days.
The team estimated that they perform an average of 75 surgeries a week to treat cataracts and pterygium, the two most common preventable ailments. (realcuba.wordpress.com)
Over 375,600 Latin Americans and Caribbeans benefited from Operacion Milagros presently.
Milagro's Operation a Cuban-Venezuelan program of free-eye surgery that began since 2004, according to official figures.
Since the beginning of the program 375,619 patients have undergone eye surgery among them 79,828 Cubans and 295,791 foreigners in Cuba and other countries, shows the Public Health Ministry (MINSAP) data published by the Cuban press.
Havana and Caracas hope to carry out about six million of Latin Americans in 10 years.
The director of Cuba Ophthalmology Institute Marcelino Rios said his country has 800 ophthalmologists available and is training other 1,000 while developing exchanging programs with specialists from United States, Japan, Italy and Spain.
Rios explained the surgery program began in Cuba but recently new ophthalmologic centers were established in Venezuela and Bolivia with Cuban doctors working in them.
Other big centers will be created in Africa and Asia, asserted Rios. (www.cubaheadlines.com)
Since 2005, Cuban medical workers in 37 clinics located in eight countries have provided eye surgery to over 1.6 million individuals from around the world, many of whom are residents of Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) member states, which is a trading bloc designed as an alternative to the American-supported North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA). Interestingly enough, even Mario Terán, who assassinated Che Guevara in 1967, received eye treatment from a team of Cuban doctors working in the El Chapare region of Bolivia.
Cuban medical professionals specialized in ocular treatment have traveled to all corners of the Americas for over a decade providing high quality medical attention for free to people in need. The initiatve is called “Operation Milagro,” or Operation Miracle, which began in 2004 as a joint project between Cuba and Venezuela. In Bolivia, the operation has been active since 2006, the year President Evo Morales first took office in the Andean country. One of Cuba’s largest exports is medical personnel. Sometimes described as “medical diplomacy,” since the Caribbean island’s 1959 Revolution, an internationalist approach to sending highly qualified doctors like Dr. Barbara Estevez around the world has been a pillar of Cuba’s unique brand of socialism. “We provide free health care, this is something that is conceptually important, the idea of charging a patient for any type of service doesn’t exist in our heads, and this is something that is always very gratifying for the poor of the Earth, for the humble people who don’t have the possibility to access medical services,” Estevez said. In the Bolivian city of El Alto, one of the Operation Miracle centers has been changing lives, and in some cases, returning vision to those who thought they would never see again. Patients receive care from the most basic eye checkups to advanced surgeries, all for free. The center does not discriminate based on race, religion, income, or nationality. A number of patients traveled from neighboring Peru to receive treatment for any variety of eye problems. Jose Mamani Condori made de trip from Arequipa, Peru to receive a corrective surgery that has helped to restore his previously failing vision. “In my country, Peru, there is not this sort of conscientious attention, what comes first is the economic aspect, he who has more money is offered much better attention and he who does not have money is forced to wait," he said. Since the operation at the center began in 2006, the rotating team of Cuban doctors has performed the miracle of maintaining and restoring site to more than 100,000 patients. For Dr. Estevez, it’s all part of the job. “When a patient who has lost their vision is able to recover it once again, it is really something fantastic, maybe that is the origin of Operation Miracle, it means returning to the light, being able to see again.” (www.telesurtv.net)
Denominations are in lower left, top right and lower corners.
Comments:
The convertible peso (sometimes given as CUC$) (informally called a CUC or "chavito"), is one of two official currencies in Cuba, the other being the peso. It has been in limited use since 1994, when it was treated as equivalent to the U.S. dollar: its value was officially US$1.00. On 8 November 2004, the U.S. dollar ceased to be accepted in Cuban retail outlets leaving the convertible peso as the only currency in circulation in many Cuban businesses. Officially exchangeable only within the country, its value was increased to US$1.08 on 5 April 2008, and reverted to US$1.00 on 15 March 2011. The convertible peso is, by the pegged rate, the twelfth-highest-valued currency unit in the world and the highest valued "peso" unit.
On 22 October 2013 it was announced that the currency is to be scrapped by gradually unifying it with the lower-value Cuban peso.
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