By Jesus Arboleya on May 12, 2021
US Embassy in Havana, Photo: Bill Hackwell
What at one time was known as the “Havana Syndrome,” the alleged incidents of unknown origin that affected the health of U.S. diplomats stationed in Cuba, has now spread around the globe. It turns out that even in Miami and Washington there are “attacks with microwaves” capable of driving the dogs of US officials crazy while on a walk through the park.
This type of incident was first reported at the end of 2016, but the problem became critical a year later, when the Trump administration used them as a pretext to suspend consular activities in Cuba and expel 15 diplomats from the Cuban embassy in Washington. The most important consequence was that the United States stopped complying with the migratory agreements between the two countries, an unprecedented fact since they were signed in 1995, and as a result practically reduced to zero the possibility that Cuban citizens could reconnect with their emigrated relatives, or visit them in the United States.
At first the possibility of self-inflicted damage was conjectured since the ‘attacks’ coincided with repairs that, very secretly, were being performed in the U.S. embassy in Havana. Who knows what device the CIA officers — who were the majority of those affected — were playing with? But this version, as sensational as it might have been, was diluted in the press and all kinds of fantasies began to appear regarding the mysterious weapons used, and the possible perpetrators of the ‘attacks.’
The first official U.S. report ruled Cuba out as perpetrator. If Cuba had been responsible it would not have looked good for the U.S. image an appearance of vulnerability to such a small and underdeveloped country. And yet, Cuba was anyway blamed for not properly protecting U.S. embassy personnel, something that the Americans declared themselves incapable of doing. Then the ghost chase began.
Only Canada, which for some reason always resembles the United States, reported similar cases in Cuba but handled the conflict with more sanity. A case was later reported in China, but there were no consulate closures or mass expulsions. In short, no other country joined the complaints or showed solidarity with the U.S. ‘victims.’ For its part, the majority of the international scientific community insisted on the impossibility of such an attack based on the results described. A recently declassified U.S. State Department report describes the matter as “a political response plagued by mismanagement, lack of coordination and non-compliance with procedures.”
Now they are trying to find a way out for the Biden administration so that it can solve the problem whenever and however it wants. In this manner it prevents it from being recognized as a lie, which would be a disaster for the Cuban-American right, the true promoter of this story. It was a masterful move by those who wanted to violate immigration agreements and hinder people-to-people contacts, without bearing the responsibility of affecting their constituents in the Cuban-American community. In other words, it turned out to be Cuba’s fault, working on some Machiavellian plan with its Russian allies, to affect the innocent American diplomats.
Since it is impossible to fool everyone all the time, now Cuban-American politicians appear ‘worried’ about reestablishing the family reunification program for Cubans that THEY themselves stopped. Congress members Mario Díaz Balart and María Elvira Salazar even want to make it into law, and have proposed using (which is impossible) the United States Naval Base in Guantánamo to process visas. Senator Marco Rubio, as the ‘serious’ politician in all of this, has even said that the best thing to do is to reestablish consular services in Havana and, apparently, Senator Bob Menéndez is moving in the same direction.
This explains why Marco Rubio, who previously claimed that the attacks were real, now demands that the CIA investigate the matter and provide a detailed explanation of what happened. According to the report by the Senate Intelligence Committee — signed by its chair, Democrat Mark Warner, and Rubio himself, as vice chair — the CIA has been quite elusive regarding this matter and has not given it the importance it deserves in investigating it, perhaps because it knows too much, one might think. In any case, new CIA head William Burns, who may know little about what happened, has assured the Committee that he will get to the bottom of the problem. Faced with the press that demands details regarding the nature of the phenomenon, Warner found the perfect answer, he said that it was an “attack” until someone proves otherwise.
Source: Progreso Weekly