A chaotic encounter between Cuban security forces and a boat full of men who set off from Florida this week may have lit the fuse at a time of heightened tensions between the US and Havana. Instead, calmer heads prevail for now.
Cuban officials said the men were terrorists who had planned and practiced an attack on the U.S. soil. But Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Carlos Fernandez de Cossio said in a statement Thursday that US authorities “have demonstrated their willingness to cooperate in clarifying the facts,” despite the communist regime’s years of defiant attitude toward Washington.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio – an outspoken critic of the government in Havana during his years in the US Senate – said the US would investigate the matter before taking any action.
US-Cuba relations are at their most delicate in decades. The Trump administration imposed a near-total blockade of the island, cutting off fuel supplies to the cash-strapped government.
After taking out Cuba’s top ally, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, last month, President Donald Trump speculated that the island and its 67-year-old regime would collapse. On Friday, Trump said, “we might see a friendly takeover of Cuba” in response to a reporter’s question about the country.
Cuba has previously warned that the US is pushing the country into a humanitarian crisis and that some kind of terrorist attack is imminent.
Much remains unknown about what led the group to make the 90-mile journey from Florida to Cuba in a 24-foot, single-engine fishing boat that had been reported stolen in the Florida Keys. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office has named the man Cuba identified as the man killed in the shootout as a suspect in the robbery.
Cuban officials said the men were carrying sniper rifles, night vision goggles, bulletproof vests, Molotov cocktails and munitions with the intention of overthrowing the government, and that when Cuban border patrol approached the ship, the men opened fire, wounding a Cuban military commander.
Four of the alleged attackers were killed in the shootout and the others – including an 11th individual who had previously traveled to Cuba to meet the airborne team – were detained, Cuba’s interior ministry said.
At least two of the men, including one who died, are U.S. citizens, according to a U.S. official. A third man was on a K-1 “fiancée visa,” and some of the others may be permanent residents of the U.S., the official said.
There has been confusion over the identities of some of the men Cuba says it has detained. One man initially identified as a detainee by Cuban authorities later turned up to be free in south Florida, a mistake de Cossio acknowledged.
Earlier this month, Trump extended a national emergency decree barring unauthorized U.S. vessels from entering Cuban waters. It is not yet clear how a small pleasure boat carrying ten men escaped detection and entered Cuban territorial waters from Florida.
The U.S. military has long worried in Cuba “that some rogue elements in Florida would take matters into their own hands and try to precipitate a collapse,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior research fellow at Chatham House, an international affairs think tank.
Among the men detained by Cuba is Amijail Sanchez Gonzalez, a 47-year-old Florida resident who claimed to be a member of a group called Auto Defensa del Pueblo, or People’s Self-Defense, known as ADP.
A Facebook page that people familiar with the matter said belonged to Sanchez shared a communique attributed to ADP calling on the people of Cuba to “join the definitive battle against the dictatorship.” In a video released on February 11, Sanchez said it was time to intervene in Cuba.
Family members of Sanchez could not immediately be reached for comment.
De Cossio, the deputy minister, said Sanchez and another man, Leordan Enrique Cruz, were wanted by Cuba on terrorism charges. He said Cuba had released the names of both men to U.S. authorities. Sanchez and ADP are on the government’s list of 67 individuals and 20 organizations accused of financing or engaging in terrorism.
“The Cuban government is still awaiting responses to requests for information about them and other individuals and organizations included in the issued list,” de Cossio said.
South Florida was the scene of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion—a US-backed coup attempt that failed to depose Fidel Castro—followed by numerous sabotage operations and small armed incursions. In 1976, Luis Posada Carriles, who had deep ties to Miami, helped orchestrate the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.
Posada Carriles, who died in 2018, is still considered a freedom fighter by some Cuban exiles in Miami, while Cuba and the FBI have labeled him a terrorist.
Wednesday’s clash came just a day after the 30th anniversary of a deadly incident between the Cuban government and two unarmed US planes, which Havana claimed violated its national airspace.
The deaths of the four pilots, all members of Brothers to the Rescue – an anti-Castro group based in Miami – soured US-Cuba relations and prompted then-President Bill Clinton to sign the Cuban Freedom and Democratic Solidarity Act, which tightened the economic embargo on the island.
“This is not an isolated incident,” de Cossio said. “Cuba has been the victim of attacks and countless acts of terrorism for more than 60 years, most of which have been organized, financed and carried out from the territory of the United States.”
With help from Stephen Wicary.
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
