To promote a peaceful transition to a Cuba that respects human rights
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Sixty Minutes on "Havana Syndrome" targeting Americans. The youngest victims of "Havana Syndrome." How American Airlines caved to the Castro regime
The Sixty Minutes report "Targeting Americans" was broadcast on February 20, 2022 and can be viewed on the Youtube link above. It is a troubling report of the phenomenon first identified in late 2016. One of the early victims targeted in Havana, Cuba spoke for the first time to the press in this program and described what happened.
"UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It was rough. It was rough in the beginning. It was a dark place to be. We were kinda shoved aside and they wanted it to go away.
This man is among those who fought for recognition. He's one of the first cases, from 2016. Americans assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Cuba say they and their families were struck at home, frequently, in the night. He remembers the first time.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And that night all the dogs started kicking off, in the neighborhood barking, which was very unusual for them all to go in chorus. And then this just loud sound just absolutely filled my room. It felt like my head was slowly starting to get crushed.
We agreed not to use his name. He is not allowed to say what federal agency he worked for.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And then the severe ear pain started. So, I liken it to if you put a Q-tip too far and you bounce it off your eardrum. Well, imagine taking a sharp pencil and just kinda poking that. It was very jarring and painful. And eventually, I started blacking out.
With the first public reports coming from Cuba the affliction became known as "Havana Syndrome." More than two dozen embassy officials reported injury, but an early FBI report speculated it was all mass hysteria. His brain injuries left him disabled, essentially retired, at the age of 36. A weighted vest helps him balance. His service dog helps with walking and his loss of vision.
Scott Pelley: Legally blind in one eye?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Correct. Yeah."
This phenomenon was first identified and made public in Cuba, but spread to countries around the world, eventually impacting high ranking officials at the White House. The question that arises, if this was an attack by a foreign power, then why would they have started in Cuba?
The answer is that the dictatorship in Cuba has operated as an outlaw regime.
On October 30, 2020 The Washington Post published a letter to the editorby the CFC executive director highlighting the Cuban dictatorship's outlaw behavior against diplomats stationed in Cuba over decades. Havana has a history of harassing American diplomats such as: killing their pets, trying to run down diplomats or crash into their vehicle and switching out mouthwash with urine.
In another case, after one diplomat’s family privately discussed their daughter’s susceptibility to mosquito bites, “they returned home to find all of their windows open and the house full of mosquitoes.”
On November 13, 2020 the Cuban ambassador to the United States, responded to CFC's letter with his own claim that The Washington Post"should have alerted readers that there is no scientific evidence that can support the kind of sonic 'attacks' alleged."
Less than a month after the Cuban ambassador's letter the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report on December 5, 2020 titled "An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies (2020)" found "that among the mechanisms the committee considered, directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases, especially in individuals with the distinct early symptoms."
The Sixty Minutes report also reported on how children were targeted. It was not just American diplomats, and their dependents but Canadian diplomats and their children were also harmed.
The children of Canadian diplomats are among those who have experienced unusual symptoms.
"Our children are the forgotten victims of the 'Havana Syndrome,'" said a female diplomat, one of several Canadian officials who spoke with 60 Minutes and asked to not be identified out of fear of being targeted again.
In 2017, the diplomat and her family were stationed in Havana, Cuba, where she says they suffered multiple episodes in their home. During one of the incidents, she said, her daughter woke up three times overnight with heavy nosebleeds. Since then, her daughter has experienced various symptoms, such as migraines, tinnitus, and spotting in her vision. Her young son has complained of dizziness and issues with his hearing.
She is one of several Canadian diplomats who has sued the Canadian government for millions of dollars in damages in connection with the health issues they say they suffered while serving in Cuba. The suit alleges that Ottawa did not sufficiently inform, protect, or treat the diplomats and their families.
The Castro regime's outlaw behavior has been normalized, and it is part of a broader trend of eroding human rights standards, and zero accountability that encourages worse behaviors by authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships.
Normalizing relations with these types of regimes did not improve their behaviour, but have coincided with the deterioration of democratic norms. This was once again seen on February 16, 2022 when American Airline officials did the bidding of the Cuban government violating the right to return of a Cuban national.
Art curator Anamely Ramos Gonzalez with Sirley Avila Leon
Ken Kurson in his February 19, 2022 article in Fine Art Global, titled Cuban Curator Anamely Ramos Gonzalez Stranded in Miami: American Airlines Caves to Authoritarian Communist Regime reported on how the 37-year old artist, and others are blocked from returning home to Cuba.
According to the Herald, “The Cuban government has frequently denied entry to opponents and activists, but usually after they’ve already arrived on the island.” But as Ramos herself said at a press conference hastily arranged at Miami International Airport after she was denied access, “Cuba’s border cannot be at the Miami airport. It cannot be at American Airlines’ gate. If the Cuban government doesn’t want to let me in for some reason, they have to solve it with me in Cuba.”
It was American Airlines that did not allow the Cuban artist to board the plane on orders of the Cuban dictatorship, and in violation of Article 13, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to return to your country. It used to be that travelers would be turned around upon landing in Cuba by the dictatorship, now they have the assistance of airline companies. This is change, but in the wrong direction of what was promised.
Sirley Ávila León, in the picture above with Anamely Ramos, was the victim of a Cuban government engineered machete attack in May 2015 in the midst of the Obama Administration's detente with Cuba. Sirley was a delegate to the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power in Cuba from June 2005, for the rural area of Limones until 2012 when the regime gerrymandered her district out of existence. The Castro regime removed her from her position because she had fought to reopen a school in her district, but been ignored by official channels and had reached out to international media. Her son, Yoerlis Peña Ávila, who had an 18 year distinguished career in the Cuban military was forced out when he refused to declare his mother insane and have her committed to a psychiatric facility. On May 24, 2015 she was the victim of a brutal machete attack carried out by Osmany Carriòn, with the complicit assistance of his wife, that led to the loss of her left hand, right upper arm nearly severed, and knees slashed into leaving her crippled. Following the attack she did not receive adequate medical care and was told quietly by medical doctors in Cuba that if she wanted to get better that she would need to leave the country.
Ten months later, President Obama held a state visit to Cuba in March 2016, and less than eight months later, reports first emerged of "health attacks" that later became known as the "Havana Syndrome".
On January 2, 2017 Cuban troops marched in a parade over which Raul Castro presided, chanting that they would repeatedly shoot President Obama in the head so many times that they would make a “hat of lead to the head.”
That these attacks began in Cuba should give investigators pause, considering its past record on human rights, mistreatment of diplomats, and casual death threats by the Cuban military of America's first African American President.
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