The Cuban government says the group of 10 men involved in a shootout at sea while traveling on a speedboat on Wednesday were planning an “armed infiltration for terrorist purposes” into Cuba.
Four Cuban citizens living in the United States were killed in a shootout with Cuban border troops about a mile off the island’s coast, Cuban authorities said. Six other passengers on the Florida-registered speedboat were injured. The men were armed with rifles, pistols and Molotov cocktails, and were wearing camouflage, according to Cuba’s Interior Ministry. The United States is gathering its own information about what happened, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said from St. Kitts and Nevis, where he met with officials from Caribbean nations this week.
News of the deadly shooting at sea comes as the Trump administration is increasing pressure on Cuba’s communist government. On January 3, the US military captured Venezuela’s former leader – and close ally of the Cuban government – Nicolás Maduro. Washington is pushing for political reform in Cuba, and an executive order in late January authorized tariffs on countries that sell or supply oil to the island. The oil blockade has exacerbated Cuba’s energy and humanitarian crises. In the hours before Wednesday’s shooting, the Trump administration agreed to ease some oil restrictions to allow small shipments for “commercial and humanitarian” use.
Why do we write this?
Cuba is under increasing American pressure to implement political change. How does a ship carrying Cuban exiles supposedly trying to infiltrate the island fit into this moment?
The Cuban government identified the men it says were traveling on the speedboat, including two who were wanted by authorities for promoting, organizing, financing or commissioning “acts of terrorism” directed at Cuba. The brother of Michel Ortega Casanova, one of the victims, told The Associated Press that his brother had fallen into an “obsessive and diabolical” quest for Cuban freedom.
The open sea shooting was “very unusual,” said Rubio, who also stated that the passengers intercepted by Cuban forces were not part of a US government operation.
In 1961, a US-backed invasion of Cuba by more than a thousand CIA-trained Cuban exiles was quickly defeated by Cuban forces. Nearly three decades ago, in 1996, Cuban defense forces killed four people when they shot down civilian planes belonging to a U.S. group searching for rafts carrying migrants fleeing economic hardship in Cuba. The government in Havana has reported past incidents of U.S.-registered vessels entering Cuban waters, alleging they were involved in human trafficking.
Despite the heated rhetoric between Cuba and the United States over the past six decades, the Cuban government has been an important partner of the United States in combating illegal activity in the Caribbean, says William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert at American University.
Cuba “has really strict anti-drug laws,” says Dr. LeoGrande. “It’s basically shutting down traffic through the Caribbean to the United States.”
