The Cuban Foreign Ministry denied that there are contacts between officials of the island and US authorities to discuss a eventual departure of Nicolás Maduro from poweras had been suggested by several press reports spread mainly in the US and Venezuela.
In one official statementthe Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Josefina Vidal, rejected “as absurd and false the press reports that affirm” alleged contacts with Washington “to address internal issues that only concern the Government of Venezuela,” he said.
The official denounced “attempts” that seek to damage the image of Cuba and its strategic relationship with Caracas, the agency said. APwhich associates that statement with a recent letter to Donald Trump from the former head of Military Intelligence of Venezuela, Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajalin which it links Havana with a network of drug trafficking allegedly led by Maduro.
In this sense, Vidal pointed out that the island “rejects attempts to stain its clean record of fighting for peace in Latin America and the Caribbean and against drug trafficking.”
In addition, he recalled that specialized United States agencies “know first-hand the effectiveness of Cuba in combating drug trafficking.”
The Cuban Government denies any link with drug trafficking and targets the United States
USA, Venezuela and the Cuban Government
Although other accusations have been leveled against Havana on the subject before, the most recent are due to the letter written by Carvajal, who headed the Venezuelan Military Intelligence and was a deputy in the National Assembly before fleeing his country in 2017.
He is currently imprisoned in the US, extradited from Spain, and faces narcoterrorism chargesaccording to AP.
In June he pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan, where prosecutors accuse him of leading a cartel of high-ranking Venezuelan military officers that tried to “flood” the United States with cocaine in alliance with Colombian guerrilla groups.
According to various media, Carvajal assured in his letter that drug shipments from Venezuela to the United States would have been carried out deliberately as a state policy.
He also said that The strategy would have been suggested by Cuba to then-president Hugo Chávez. However, Havana categorically rejects that version.
These statements occur in a context of high tension in the Caribbean, marked by a wide deployment of US ships, submarines and aircraft, as well as recent attacks by US forces against vessels accused of transporting drugs.
Crisis between the US and Venezuela
At the same time, the President’s Administration Donald Trump has intensified his rhetoric against Madurothe Colombian president Gustavo Petro and the Cuban Government itself.
Vidal warned that “American warring sectors resort to crude lies to try to break the unity of the Venezuelan government and people against external aggression.”
The official stated that the objective is to involve Cuba in creating pretexts that justify an eventual military offensive in the region.
The official newspaper Granma He amplified the message, stressing that any attempt to use the current scenario of tension to question Havana’s support for the Bolivarian Revolution will be “useless.”
Furthermore, he reiterated that Cuba is not a drug producer and that its laws contemplate severe penalties, including life sentence for drug trafficking crimesas island officials had recently stated.
