By Alejandra Garcia, on July 9, 2024 in Havana
Cuban Ministry of the Interior (MININT) photo: Bill Hackwell
This week it was reported that Cuba thwarted the attempts of a network of Cubans living in the United States who were trying to enter the island illegally with weapons, and with the purpose of starting a social outbreak. The Ministry of the Interior (Minint) disclosed details of a recruitment plan, neutralized in December 2023, directed, from U.S. territory, to promote and organize terrorist actions in Cuba.
In late November 2023, a Cuban citizen illegally entered Cuba by sea with firearms and ammunition. The individual, identified as Ardenys García Álvarez, entered the island through the Manuel Canal area, in the province of Matanzas, with a Jet Ski type nautical motorcycle, registered in the U.S. state of Florida.
Bullets and other arsenals were found during the seizure of the vehicle. Later, the authorities found that Garcia entered with five pistols of various origins and characteristics, cartridges including an American Tactical pistol and two different models of Smith & Wesson, manufactured in the United States, along with a Steyr, from Austria, and a Taurus, created in Brazil, along with rounds of ammunition.
Garcia was already known to Cuban law enforcement. Before immigrating to the United States in 2014, he was already wanted for crimes of robbery with force. A new legal process against him began immediately after he was caught red-handed on December 9.
During his imprisonment, he confessed to having had contact with Willy González, a representative of the anti-Cuban group calling itself La Nueva Nación Cubana en Armas (The New Cuban Nation in Arms).
In Garcia’s statements to the justice system between the time of his capture and May 2024, during his arrest awaiting charges, he confessed that the name of his recruiter was Dayan Quiñones, with whom he had exchanged messages via the social network Telegram. Subsequently, he had participated with the terrorist group in two military trainings.
During the training, the terrorist mentioned a document that gave a reason for this paraphernalia. In this document of undefined authorship, those involved state their “determination to employ armed struggle, putting at risk the lives of a group of determined men, in order to save the lives of many others.” It was a manifesto of their plans against Cuba.
Other real objectives behind this declaration of intentions were exposed in Willy Gonzalez’s multiple calls for the “awakening of the people,” through violence against offices, sugar cane fields, and the tobacco factories of Pinar del Rio…. “We are reaching the level when their will be physical harm,” he assured.
The story is even more sordid and involves many other terrorists who roam the streets of Florida with the full complicity of U.S. authorities, despite Cuba’s denunciations. Another member of the New Cuban Nation in Arms, alluded to by the accused under the nickname of “El Lobo”, is Jorge Luis Fernandez Figueras, promoter and financier of aggressive actions directed against children’s circles, schools, polyclinics and the warehouses of the Basic Electric Organization, especially in the municipality of San Miguel del Padron, in the province of Havana.
The criminal incursion occurred in November, but it is not by chance that the news is only fully coming to light now; a few days before Cuba remembers with pain and shame the violent events of July 11, 2021. The Cuban authorities took time now to remove the mask of the material authors of this act of provocation, which is not the first and will not be the last, as long as the White House turns a deaf ear to Cuba’s condemnations.
Yes, the fact that the results of the ongoing investigation were released shortly before July 11 is calculated but there is another message. Cuba is at peace, but the intelligence forces are alert and active and on the move. Mercenaries that come here from the US to disrupt and try to undermine Socialist Cuba will be caught and face the fullest extent of our laws and they will not be going back to their lairs in Miami anytime soon. Nothing will disturb the tranquility of the people. Cuba is protected.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English