When CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Havana final week for a uncommon assembly with senior Cuban officers, he introduced alongside one of many operators concerned within the U.S. mission to seize then-Venezuelan chief Nicolás Maduro earlier this 12 months, a number of folks conversant in the matter instructed CBS Information.
Venezuela and Cuba had been key allies earlier than Maduro’s arrest, and the Cuban authorities has mentioned 32 of its army and law enforcement officials had been killed within the January operation to extract Maduro.
Ratcliffe made some extent of introducing the paramilitary chief to the Cubans because the one who killed their folks in Venezuela, a number of sources mentioned.
The presence of a paramilitary officer who was concerned in capturing a key companion of the Cuban authorities simply months earlier could have been meant to ship a sign.
The CIA declined to remark.
Ratcliffe’s go to adopted months of strain on Cuba. The administration has threatened steep tariffs on any international locations that export oil to the island nation, resulting in extreme gasoline shortages.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has mentioned the nation must make basic financial and political reforms, and President Trump has floated a “pleasant takeover” of the island, which has vexed U.S. administrations since Cuba’s communist motion rose to energy in 1959.
Hours after the Maduro raid, Rubio pointed to Cuba’s ties to Venezuela, telling reporters that Venezuela’s “entire spy company” was “filled with Cubans.”
“If I lived in Havana and I used to be within the authorities, I would be involved, no less than just a little bit,” he mentioned.
A CIA official mentioned Ratcliffe delivered a message to Cuba that the U.S. is “ready to noticeably interact on financial and safety points, however provided that Cuba makes basic modifications.”
Central Intelligence Company
One of many figures that Ratcliffe met with was Raúl Rodriguez Castro, or “Raulito,” the grandson of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, the CIA official instructed CBS Information final week. Lower than per week later, an indictment in opposition to the 94-year-old elder Castro was unsealed in U.S. federal court docket, charging him with homicide and conspiracy for Cuba’s deadly downing of two planes in 1996.
The assembly between an American spy chief and a member of the Castro household carried the lengthy shadow of a Chilly Warfare wrestle that helped outline relations between Washington and Havana for greater than half a century. Cuban officers probably bear in mind the historical past of covert American efforts to undermine the federal government of Fidel Castro, notably after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and the launch of Operation Mongoose, the clandestine marketing campaign overseen by the Kennedy administration to destabilize the island’s communist authorities.
Relations between the U.S. and Cuba are nonetheless impacted by that fraught historical past. Rubio instructed reporters Thursday that Cuba “not solely has weapons that they’ve acquired from Russia and China through the years, however additionally they host Russia and Chinese language intelligence presence of their nation.”
A CIA official mentioned final week Ratcliffe mentioned “safety points” with Cuban officers “in opposition to the backdrop that Cuba can not be a protected haven for adversaries within the Western Hemisphere.”
In the meantime, as tensions rise, the U.S. intelligence neighborhood has been exploring how Cuba would possibly reply to American army motion, CBS Information reported earlier this week. CBS Information has additionally confirmed that Cuba has acquired assault drones.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez mentioned this week Cuba “poses no menace” to the U.S., however he warned of a “massacre” if the U.S. army carries out strikes.
