Cuba began its biggest military maneuvers in five years on Thursday, saying they were needed to prepare for a possible invasion by the US.
Despite a thaw in US-Cuba relations and assurances last week by US President Barack Obama that the US has no intention of invading the island 145km from Florida, Cuba’s state-run press quoted military leaders as saying there “exists a real possibility of a military aggression against Cuba.”
The war games, which are being called “Bastion 2009,” also will get the military ready to deal with social unrest the US may try to foment in this time of economic crisis in Cuba, ahead of an invasion, they said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Cuban television showed images of tanks firing their guns as they rolled through the countryside, artillery batteries blasting away, camouflaged troops digging trenches and shooting bazookas, attack helicopters and fighter jets buzzing through the sky and rescue teams tending wounded combatants.
It was not clear if the images came from Thursday’s maneuvers or from file footage of previous activities, nor were the sites of the war games disclosed.
Tanks and anti-aircraft guns were seen on trains outside of Havana on Thursday being prepared for transport to an unknown destination. In the evening news broadcast, Cuban President Raul Castro was shown urging Cubans to fight until they have vanquished the enemy.
“The objective is to never surrender, to never stop fighting,” he said in a meeting with military leaders.
“Fight and fight until we exhaust the enemy and defeat it,” said Castro, who was Cuba’s defense minister before succeeding his ailing brother Fidel Castro as president last year.
The maneuvers, which end today and will involve 100,000 soldiers and reservists, are taking place at a time when relations between the US and Cuba have warmed under Obama after five decades of hostility.
He has slightly eased the 47-year-old US trade embargo against the country and initiated talks on migration and postal service, but based further progress on Cuba releasing political prisoners and improving rights.
Raul Castro has said Cuba is open to better relations, but will make no unilateral concessions to the US.
In a written response to questions from Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez last week, Obama said: “The United States has no intention of using military force in Cuba.”
However, Cuban military leaders have insisted in state-run press that Bastion 2009 is “a necessity of the first order in the current political-military situation that characterizes the confrontation between Cuba and the empire [the US].”
They appeared to signal disgruntlement with Obama, whose election brought high hopes of change in the country, saying the embargo goes on and he has not removed Cuba from the US list of “terrorist” countries.
History is also a factor. Cuba, fresh from the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power, fended off a US-backed invasion by Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and has remained on high alert for another ever since.
At the height of the Cold War, Cuba entered into an alliance with the Soviet Union and received military support until the former superpower collapsed in 1991.
The alliance almost brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in 1962 when the Soviets placed nuclear missiles on the island, prompting a showdown with the US that became known as the Cuban missile crisis.
The tense confrontation ended peacefully when the Soviets withdrew the missiles in exchange for a US pledge to never invade Cuba and, it was later revealed, pull its own missiles from Turkey.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS