(AFP) – Cuba’s leader warned Monday of a “bloodbath” in the event of an American attack, and the US Treasury issued sanctions targeting Cuba’s main intelligence agency and top leaders as tensions spiked between the longtime rivals. President Miguel Diaz-Canel stressed the island’s right to defend itself a day after US news site Axios reported that Havana had obtained over 300 military drones from Russia and Iran and is mulling using them against a US base at Guantanamo Bay in eastern Cuba, among other targets.
The report, which quoted US intelligence officials, came amid growing speculation that the United States is weighing military action to topple Cuba’s communist government. It said that US military vessels and possibly even Florida could be targeted in Cuban drone strikes, which an unnamed US official presented as proof of the “growing threat” posed by Cuba to the United States. Writing on X, Diaz-Canel repeated that Cuba “poses no threat” to the United States or any other country and warned that a US attack would “trigger a bloodbath with incalculable consequences.” He did not directly address the alleged stockpiling of drones but said Cuba had “the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself against a military onslaught.” “Yet that cannot be wielded, logically or honestly, as an excuse for imposing war on the noble Cuban people,” he wrote.
– Adding pressure –
Washington on Monday ramped up pressure on the Caribbean island nation by announcing sanctions on its intelligence agency and nine Cuban nationals, including the country’s ministers for communications, energy and justice. Several top Communist Party officials and at least three generals were also among those sanctioned, according to a statement from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The United States has heaped pressure on Cuba since January, with President Donald Trump musing about overthrowing the country’s leadership, as US forces did in Venezuela that month.
Washington cut off one of Cuba’s last economic lifelines by halting oil shipments from Venezuela, its main fuel supplier, and threatening tariffs on any other country that attempted to make up the shortfall. Trump’s oil blockade has exacerbated a severe humanitarian and energy crisis in Cuba, marked by ever more frequent blackouts. The Cuban government has accused Washington of trying to create a pretext for a military intervention against its arch foe after first trying to “strangle” Cuba’s economy with a crippling fuel blockade.
The Axios report came days after CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Havana for negotiations. It also comes amid US media reports that the Trump administration is seeking to indict Raul Castro, the 94-year-old brother of late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, as part of its pressure campaign. Havana says the oil blockade has caused the country to run out of diesel and fuel oil needed to power the generators that supplement the electricity production of its dilapidated power plants.
On Monday, the island received a new shipment of humanitarian aid from Mexico — its fifth from Mexico’s left-wing government since February. Unlike the previous shipments, which were carried by the Mexican navy, Monday’s aid consignment was transported by a merchant ship, sailing under a Panamanian flag, AFP journalists observed. The vessel is carrying 1,700 tons of aid. Cuba’s minister for the food industry, Alberto Lopez, said that it included powdered milk and beans for children and the elderly.
– Lisandra COTS and Jordane BERTRAND
© 2024 AFP
