The city of Bejucal is located in the northwest, 27 kilometers from Havana, and has not seen the Chinese for several decades. Residents were stunned when the city appeared on the news as an enclave where Beijing had set up top-secret bases to spy on Washington from Cuba, news that made the rounds around the world.

Anonymous sources for the Wall Street Journal, the newspaper that received the “scoop”, went one step further and assured during a meeting between Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and President Xi Jinping that “China is in talks to establish a military training center in Cuba (…) that would supply thousands of soldiers 90 miles off the coast of Florida.”

“Evidence” is a series of Reuters photographs in Bezhukal. They point to a satellite dish in the middle of nowhere, as rusty and grotesque as the crooked sign at the entrance to a supposed military facility that locals say has been there all their lives. There is no police detention in the panoramic shots, so perhaps someone will try to convince us that the Chinese spies are invisible.

Few things are as dreary as Cold War tales brewing in some dark American office where James Bond always confronts international ghosts and a Caribbean island is used as a base of operations.

In May 2002, then-Under Secretary of State John Bolton accused Fidel Castro’s government of producing biological weapons to be smuggled into Iraq, Libya and Syria. He came to identify the “factory” of bacteriological bombs: the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Havana, a scientific institution that produces vaccines. History will collapse under its own weight when former President James Carter of the same location suggested that others do what he did: “Accept Castro’s offer to test it.”

In 2017, when Bolton became Trump’s White House national security adviser, spies in the Caribbean resurfaced with magic guns aimed at the ears of US diplomats in Havana. Some Chinese and some Russians were the opening act for the stories of those days. As fantastic and absurd as it may be, the “sonic attacks” story led to an additional 243 sanctions against Cuba, as well as the restoration of the Caribbean country in the list of sponsors of terrorism.

A declassified State Department report says that with Trump back in Mar-a-Lago and John Bolton vanishing from the horizon, the decision to dismantle the embassy in Havana in response to alleged “acoustic attacks” was the “response” of a policy plagued by mismanagement, lack of coordination and non-compliance with procedures. It took Biden half of his term to reopen some consular offices in Havana, and he still maintains most of his predecessor’s sanctions.

The American greed has been full of such scams ever since Washington intervened in the Spanish-Cuban War at the end of the 19th century, and even earlier, according to 98 Americans (Madrid, 1974), a book by José Manuel Allendesalazar, a classic on the subject. “Ever since the United States was born in history, fate has decreed that the island has somehow become a nightmare for Americans. Cuba is a familiar, attractive and annoying word in the lexicon of American politicians not only today but also centuries ago,” the author says.

The battleship Maine sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, when her boilers exploded, killing 266 American sailors, most of whom were black. It was an accident inside the ship (possibly sabotage), as various investigations and firsthand witnesses have shown, but the White House and its chorus of correspondents and spies in Cuba were quick to blame the Spaniards and replicate bombastic conspiracy theories and sensational soap operas. operas Since then, the naval incident has become a pretext for war and a classic of American politics and tabloids, so close to each other, so recidivist and given to notoriety.

Great movie by John FordThe Man Who Killed Liberty Valance), the journalist receives good advice: “Between truth and legend, always print a legend.” In the case that worries us about spy bases and Chinese troops that supposedly control 90 miles from Florida, the reality is Bejukal. But who cares? (Originally published in La Jornada)

Source: Juventud Rebelde