US says Cuba aided global anti-US network

Washington, July 20 (SocialNews.XYZ) Cuba has acted as a force multiplier for China, Russia, Iran and other American adversaries while maintaining influence networks inside the United States, the US State Department alleged Monday.

The accusation is contained in a 70-page State Department report titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism”. It examines what the department describes as Havana’s sustained campaign of espionage, infiltration and ideological subversion against the United States.

“For more than six decades, the Cuban regime has been the leading sponsor of radical leftism and Third Worldism in the United States. The State Department is exposing the full history of Cuban espionage and subversion in our country. The American people deserve to know,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

The report alleges that Cuba developed an unconventional model of conflict because it lacked the military capacity to defeat the United States in a conventional war. That model, it says, relied on espionage, infiltration, sabotage, proxy networks and a revolutionary infrastructure inside America.

Cuban agents infiltrated senior levels of the State Department, the National Security Council and the Pentagon and operated undetected for decades, according to the report.

It also accuses Cuba of training and arming tens of thousands of left-wing guerrillas, overseeing violent insurgencies abroad and backing extremist attacks in the United States. The island, the department says, became a refuge for American fugitives wanted for bombings, armed robberies and murders.

The department says Havana’s influence extended beyond traditional espionage. Beginning in the 1960s, Cuba allegedly recruited and cultivated activists, intellectuals and political groups while helping shape movements ranging from the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground to Antifa.

The report alleges that parts of this network continue to have ties to left-wing non-profit organisations, anti-ICE collectives, socialist groups and Marxist militant organisations in the United States.

It identifies the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (ICAP), National Network on Cuba (NNoC), National Lawyers Guild, The People’s Forum and Code Pink as organisations within what it calls a Cuba-aligned network. The material released by the department does not contain responses from Cuba or the named organisations.

The report says Havana has also forged or deepened partnerships with foreign governments and movements hostile to Washington. China and Russia have reportedly tripled the number of their intelligence agents on the island over the past three years, it says.

Cuba also provides anti-American actors with access to influence and intelligence networks in the United States while facilitating contacts with American groups, according to the department. It alleges that Cuban networks have helped Iran, Russia and other governments project influence across the Western Hemisphere.

Source: IANS