Havana said Thursday that Washington is willing to help investigate a clash between Cuban coast guard forces and a boat coming from the United States that left four people dead, while pledging to defend the island from any “terrorist aggression.” Cuba alleged Wednesday that ten-armed individuals were intercepted in its territorial waters as they attempted to infiltrate the island “for terrorist purposes,” in a climate of rising tensions with the United States.
“Authorities in the U.S. government have shown themselves willing to cooperate to clarify these regrettable events,” Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told reporters. He said Havana “has been in communication with” the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Coast Guard.
Earlier, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the island would defend itself against any aggression. “Cuba will defend itself with determination and firmness in the face of any terrorist and mercenary aggression that seeks to affect its sovereignty and national stability,” Díaz-Canel wrote.
In addition to the four deaths, six other people on the U.S.-registered boat were injured after it was intercepted by Cuban border guards one nautical mile off Cayo Falcones, in the central province of Villa Clara. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the United States is investigating the incident and denied any U.S. government involvement.
Two U.S. citizens
Tensions between Washington and Havana have intensified in recent weeks amid a petroleum embargo imposed by President Donald Trump. Cuban authorities said the group aboard the Florida-registered vessel had assault rifles, handguns, homemade explosive devices, bulletproof vests, and camouflage clothing.
Fernández de Cossío released a list of the boat’s ten occupants. According to Havana, all were “Cubans residing in the United States,” several with criminal records. Cuba said two of them, who were wounded, were wanted for alleged links to “acts of terrorism.” Cuba also said it arrested another Cuban on the island who had been sent from the United States to support the operation and who confessed to “his actions.”
At least two of the passengers were U.S. citizens, a senior U.S. official told AFP on Thursday. One of the two “has died and the other is injured,” the source said, adding that “the owner of the vessel stated it had been stolen by an employee.”
To spark an uprising
Michel Ortega Casanova, one of the four people killed, wanted “to go fight” in Cuba and see “if that sparked the flame and the people rose up,” Wilfredo Beyra, a fellow political activist, said on Thursday. Ortega’s goal “was to go fight against a criminal and murderous narco-tyranny, to see if that sparked the flame and the people rose up and supported them,” Beyra said by phone. Beyra leads in Tampa the Cuban Republican Party, a Florida-based opposition organization to which Ortega belonged.
Beyra said there are several groups in Florida that “openly state they are willing … to fight for the freedom of their homeland.” Armed command infiltrations from south Florida to carry out attacks in Cuba were frequent in the early decades after the 1959 revolution, as were kidnappings of Cuban fishermen and attacks on Cuban diplomats and diplomatic missions abroad.
Washington has long sought political change in Cuba and has pursued a maximum-pressure policy, citing what it calls the “exceptional threat” posed by the island, just 150 kilometers (about 90 miles) from Florida, to U.S. national security. The U.N. coordinator in Cuba, Francisco Pichón, warned Thursday of a humanitarian crisis that is “worsening day by day” on the island.
“What we are seeing on the ground is not a temporary shortage; it is a more systemic energy shock that is becoming the main factor multiplying humanitarian risks,” Pichón warned.
