WorldLatin America
Rubio invites Cubans to a 'discreet partnership with the CIA'; Havana mocks him
The US secretary of state told Cubans seeking change that 'now is the time'. Cuba's deputy foreign minister said Washington was selling the agency 'like a tube of toothpaste'.
Key points
- Marco Rubio urged Cubans to seek change through a discreet partnership with the CIA.
- The CIA followed with a Spanish-language video telling people how to come forward.
- Washington has kept an embargo on Cuba for more than 60 years.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has openly called on Cubans who want an end to their communist government to work with the CIA, a public appeal that Havana answered with ridicule.
“To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba: now is the time,” Rubio wrote on X. He pointed to “the disappointment of failed promises, corruption, and the privileged lives of only a few” on the island, and urged Cubans to “seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discreet partnership with the CIA.”
The agency followed with a video in Spanish explaining how people with information of interest could get in touch, and encouraging those who can travel safely to visit a US embassy in person first.
Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, said the US was now “resorting to public recruitment for the CIA”, and suggested the agency was so desperate it had to sell itself “like a tube of toothpaste”. Last month he warned that US military action against Cuba would be an “atrocious international crime”.
US officials have for months hinted at military intervention in Cuba. A US oil blockade imposed earlier this year has left the island short of fuel and hit by blackouts, a measure UN rights experts have called a breach of international law. Washington has kept an embargo on Cuba for more than 60 years and has stepped up the pressure since US forces captured Venezuela’s then-president Nicolás Maduro in a deadly raid in January.