Without further explanation of the exact circumstances of the “incident”, a US State Department official told EFE that the annulment of a meeting of senior Cuban officials at the headquarters of the Coast Guard with their counterparts in Washington was due to a transportation problem.
Until now, the US press had linked the change in the agenda to the angry protests of various Republican politicians opposed to that visit, which coincides with two disagreements between Washington and Havana this week.
“The United States Coast Guard conducts inspections of foreign ports and offers reciprocal access,” the spokesman explained, adding that a US delegation already visited Cuba in January.
“The United States Coast Guard conducts inspections of foreign ports and offers reciprocal access,” the spokesman explained.
The Cuban delegation’s visit initially included a meeting at the Coast Guard headquarters and a tour of the Wilmington (North Carolina) port facilities as part of a US port security program. The US and Cuba have maintained this type of contact for years, even during the tenure of Donald Trump.
However, Republican Senator Marco Rubio wrote a letter to US President Joe Biden last Friday, expressing his “serious concern” over the visit, and noting that both the Cuban Ministry of the Interior and several of its officials have been sanctioned for human rights violations and corruption.
“I want to know why national security protocols are being shared with one of our biggest foreign adversaries,” said the Florida state representative. Several Republican congressmen echoed Rubio’s message and called for the visit to be cancelled.
In this context, the members of the Cuban delegation – whose identities have not been disclosed – arrived in the US on Monday and two days later the shortening of the visit was announced, which was reduced to a trip to North Carolina .
The event came to light at the same time that Havana strongly protested the granting of political asylum to Rubén Martínez, the pilot who fled the island in November with a fumigation plane. The regime requested his return to Cuba to be processed, but a judge decided last week to approve the young man’s request.
Havana reacted by calling the chargé d’affaires, Benjamin Ziff, for consultations to convey his protest and issued a statement denouncing what it considers complicit and encouraging “piracy and air hijacking, crimes that, if tolerated and protected, could encourage illegal acts similar with negative repercussions for the national security of both countries”.
According to El Nuevo Herald, Washington had not dared to cancel this week’s trip completely for fear that Havana would retaliate and begin to reject deportations from the United States.
In addition, the publication of a report prepared by Antiterrorism and corresponding to 2021 created new tension in the Cuban government, which has protested a text that is neither current nor does it constitute the inclusion, once again, in the list of States that sponsor terrorism, as Havana claims.
According to The New HeraldWashington had not dared to cancel this week’s trip completely for fear that Havana would retaliate and begin to reject deportations from the US, which this year already exceeds 1,800 from this country alone.
Since October 1, the US Coast Guard has already arrested almost 5,000 people from the Island.
In total, according to the Island’s Ministry of the Interior, 2,601 Cubans have been deported from different countries in 41 operations, the most recent this Thursday from the Bahamas, which returned 128 people –one of whom has allegedly committed serious crimes in Cuba– by air, 106 men, 20 women and two minors, for a total of 459 from that country.
In addition to the Bahamas and the US, the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic and Mexico have also deported migrants to the island.
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