The Havana Syndrome: The dangerous legacy of appeasing tyrants and not recognizing their true nature (What The New York Times forgot)

Update on Cuba's health attacks that many would like to forget.

Did appeasement policy lead to 40 diplomats suffering brain damage?

The question raised by The New York Times in their October 19th article referencing the "Havana Syndrome" with respect to China and Russia titled "U.S. Diplomats and Spies Battle Trump Administration Over Suspected Attacks", was first raised in this blog with regard to Cuba on September 20, 2017:"Did State Department downplaying attacks on diplomats in Cuba endanger others?"  This downplaying of injuries to American diplomats started during the Obama Administration. This blog also asked if the 2014-2017 neo-appeasement policy had worsened the behavior of the Castro regime?

Over forty American employees stationed at embassies in Cuba and China are requiring long term "emergency health and other benefits" due to injuries suffered on the job in these two countries. The largest number were stationed in Cuba.  

In the fall of 2016 U.S. diplomats began to complain of "mild" traumatic brain injury, permanent hearing, and memory loss. In May of 2017 two Cuban diplomats were expelled from the United States over the matter, but the reason was not made known until August 9, 2017.

On December 7, 2016 the United States and Cuba held their fifth Bilateral Commission meeting where they celebrated progress on U.S.-Cuba relations, and according to the Miami Herald signed "11 non-binding agreements on health, the environment, counter-narcotics, and other areas of cooperation." No word on attacks against diplomats.

Cuban troops in military parade chant they'll shoot President Obama in the head

On January 2, 2017 Raúl Castro presided over a military parade in Havana where marching troops chanted about shooting the American President in the head: "Obama! Obama! with what fervor we’d like to confront your clumsiness, to give you a cleansing with rebels and mortar, and send you a hat of lead to the head.”
 
On January 12, 2017 the Obama Administration provided further concessions to Cuba gutting the Cuban Adjustment Act and ending the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program that had bothered General Castro for years.  

On January 16, 2017 the Obama State Department issued a statement that "the United States and Cuba [had] signed a bilateral Law Enforcement Memorandum of Understanding to deepen law enforcement cooperation and information sharing." American diplomats were suffering serious harm, including mild traumatic brain injury, permanent hearing loss that included loss of balance, headaches, and brain swelling. Yet, according to The Wall Street Journal no complaint was made until February of 2017.  

On January 17, 2017 President Obama granted clemency to Oscar López Rivera, a founder of the Armed Forces of National Liberation Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN), a movement responsible for more than 130 bombings in American cities - including one in New York City on January 24, 1975 that went off in the Fraunces Tavern during lunch hour killing four people. Unrepentant, López had 10 years added to his sentence when he and another FALN member were caught plotting a prison break that included killing their prison guards. On November 17, 2017 Mr. 
López Rivera received the Order of Solidarity from the Cuban government.  

American diplomats were being permanently harmed while all these concessions were being made, and regime soldiers contemptuously chanted about shooting President Obama in the head so many times that they'd make him a lead hat. Fabiola Santiago, an Obama partisan, wrote a column on January 6, 2017 outraged at the disrespectful action by the dictatorship titled "Cuban troops’ bizarre chant: We’ll make Obama ‘a hat out of bullets to the head’", and she correctly described it as "a threat to do the U.S. president harm." 

Now CBS says that the State Department "only admitted the attacks were occurring after CBS News Radio first reported them August 9." According to the news agency an "internal Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs document obtained by CBS News shows the State Department was fully aware of the extent of the attacks on its diplomats in Havana, Cuba, long before it was forced to acknowledge them."

Worse yet "experts" such as Fulton Armstrong with a track record of "minimizing Cuba’s ability to threaten U.S. interests and its continued support to terrorists" are engaged in downplaying this latest outrage. What goes unmentioned is that under international law as described below by the International Court of Justice put it in the case of US Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran (paras 38-40):

[t]here is no more fundamental prerequisite for the conduct of relations between States than the inviolability of diplomatic envoys and embassies . . . [T]he institution of diplomacy, with its concomitant privileges and immunities, has withstood the test of centuries and proved to be an instrument essential for effective co-operation in the international community, and for enabling States, irrespective of their differing constitutional and social systems, to achieve mutual understanding and to resolve their differences by peaceful means . . . [and] the inviolability of consular premises and archives, are similarly principles deep-rooted in international law…

The Castro regime has failed to maintain the "inviolability of diplomatic envoys and embassies" in this matter but also has a decades long history of engaging in the wholesale violation of this international norm.   

Former Canadian ambassador to Cuba James Bartleman described events that occurred midway during his  (1981 – 1983) posting: “[h]is family dog was poisoned, a trade officer had a dead rat nailed to their door and the embassy started receiving threatening phone calls.”  

U.S. diplomat Robin Meyers was subjected to cars being used against her as weapons in Cuba in February of 1996. 

In 2006 The Miami Herald reported how a high-ranking member of the U.S. mission found his mouthwash replaced 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.”  American diplomats, like their Canadian counterparts, have also had pets poisoned while stationed in Cuba. 

This is an outlaw regime with a track record that should not be ignored, especially when doing so is led to diplomats and their families being seriously physically harmed.  Back on December 17, 2014 this blog made the following prediction: "Rewarding the hardline and rogue elements in the Castro regime is unlikely to improve the dictatorship's behavior to the contrary it may worsen." 

 

Average Cubans and other Latin Americans suffered at the hands of a more aggressive and violent dictatorship during the 2009 - 2017 warming of relations. An extreme example documented in May 2015 was the machete attack against Sirley Avila Leon by agents of the Castro regime.

 

State Department knew of diplomats suffering brain trauma in Havana in February 2017; evacuated 40 over the next two months

Some inconvenient facts for the Castro lobby.


Three State Department officials testified this morning before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the subject of the 2016-2017 attacks on U.S. diplomats and dependents stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba that seriously impacted 24 of them. The three officials who testified are: Senior Bureau Official Francisco L. Palmieri Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Assistant Director Todd J. Brown of the International Programs Directorate, Bureau of Diplomatic Security; and Dr. Charles Rosenfarb, Medical Director for the Bureau of Medical Services. The objective of the hearing announced at the outset by Senator Marco Rubio was to "establish the facts of what has occurred and conduct oversight on the conduct and activities of the United States Department of State."  Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Palmieri provided a general timeline:

In late 2016 , some members of our diplomatic community serving at U.S. Embassy Havana complained about hearing strange noises and a variety of unexplained physical symptoms . As the Department investigated, we began to see signs suggesting that these events – initially in diplomatic residences , and later, at hotels – may have begun as early as November 2016.

As soon as we identified a pattern connecting these unusual events with certain health symptoms, U.S. officials approached the Cuban government in mid-February to demand it meet its obligations under the Vienna Convention to protect our personnel. The Cubans denied involvement , offered their cooperation , and opened their own investigation. Since then we have engaged the Cubans more than 20 times, from the working level to the highest level of the Cuban government, both here in Washington and in Havana.

In addition to our diplomatic efforts, we prioritized the medical care of our personnel. State Department and private medical experts examined more than 80 post employees and their families, both in the United States and in Havana. Dr. Rosenfarb will provide you with additional details.

[...]

The attacks initially appeared to occur in clusters, but starting in late March , sporadic attacks continued until late April and then seemed to stop . Beginning i n mid - April , we allowed anyone serving at Embassy Havana who did not feel safe at post to return to the United States. W e also expelled two Cuban diplomats in May in order to underscore the Cuban government’s responsibility to protect our personnel .

After a period without any attacks, there were two additional attacks reported in close proximity in late August , which were medically confirmed in September . Based on the resumption of these attacks, Secretary Tillerson ordered the departure of non - emergency personnel from post on September 29. The Secretary assessed this was the only way to significantly reduce the risk to our diplomats and their families.

As a follow-on to the Ordered Departure decision, we expelled 15 more Cuban diplomats in October to ensure equity in the impact on our respective operations and to underscore to Cuba its obligation to stop the attacks . These decisions – both to draw down our personnel at Embassy Havana and to expel Cuban diplomats – did not signal a change in policy.

Hearing on attacks of U.S. diplomats in Cuba on January 9, 2017

Dr. Charles Rosenfarb, Medical Director for the Bureau of Medical Services provided an overview of the seriousness of the injuries.

Individuals first visited our medical unit in Embassy Havana in late December 2016 and January 2017 reporting various symptoms including headache, ear pain, dizziness, and hearing problems . They associated the onset of these symptoms to their exposures with unusual sounds or auditory sensations . Various descriptions were given: “ a high pitched beam of sound”; an “incapacitating sound”; a “baffling sensation” akin to driving with the windows partially open in a car; or just an intense pressure in one ear. Since the symptoms first reported primarily affected auditory functions, an otolaryngologist at the University of Miami, highly experienced in evaluating acoustic injuries in military personnel, was identified to perform additional assessments.

Between February and April of last year, this specialist evaluated eighty members of the Embassy community . Of the individuals evaluated in this initial tranche, sixteen were identified to have symptoms and medically verifiable clinical findings of some combination similar to what might be seen in patients following mild traumatic brain injury or concussion.

[...]

In light of the emerging clinical parallels to mild traumatic brain injury, the nationally - recognized brain injury center at the University of Pennsylvania was identified to provide detailed reevaluations of employees with prior exposures and to evaluate Embassy community members who reported new exposures. As a result of further evaluations begun in late August, additional individuals with exposures that occurred prior to April 24 were added to the list of confirmed cases. Two other individuals who reported exposures that occurred in mid-August 2017 were also medically confirmed as cases, bringing the total number of cases to 24.

Disturbing new information that emerged out of the hearing. Senator Rubio [R] of Florida asked Senior Bureau Official Francisco L. Palmieri why the Accountability Review Board (ARB) had not been set up within 60 -120 days of May 1, [2017 ]with the report that U.S. officials were suffering serious injuries in Havana, as required by law.  Back in October of 2017 five House members asked for a timeline of the attacks and asked if the State Department had convened an ARB in response. Today the answer was given and it was a "no." Palmieri responded that the Secretary of State had decided to convene the Accountability Review Board (ARB) and would shortly notify Congress. Rubio pressed further and asked why the law had not been followed. Palmieri said that the Secretary had not convened it before because they did not know who the perpetrator was. Senator Rubio pointed out that the law did not require identifying the perpetrator and that the ARB would seek to identify the parties responsible. Early on the opinion of security professionals, according to Assistant Director Todd J. Brown, was that this was harassment carried out by the Cuban government.

Senator Marco Rubio (R) FL

Ranking member, Senator Robert Menendez [D] of New Jersey asked when the Chargé d'affaires was informed of the attacks and Senior Bureau Official Francisco L. Palmieri responded that he had been informed of the attacks in late December of 2016. According to Todd J. Brown it was December 30, 2016 when it was brought to the attention of the regional security officer and noted in a report to Washington.This also raises the question, made by Senator Rubio, when was Secretary of State John Kerry informed? Was President Obama informed?  Senator Menendez asked when they became aware that brain trauma was involved and Dr. Charles Rosenfarb responded that the first patient was medically evacuated on February 6, 2017 and over the next two months evacuated 40 people.

Senator Robert Menendez (D) NJ

Meanwhile Senator Jeff Flake [R] of Arizona, who was present at the hearing today, has pushed a narrative that there were no attacks, trying to spin an FBI report leaked to the Associated Press.  However the AP article does not say that there were no attacks but that the FBI "has uncovered no evidence that sound waves could have damaged the Americans’ health" and that the report "doesn’t address other theories and says the FBI will keep investigating until it can show there’s been no intentional harm."

Senator Jeanne Shaheen [D] of NH

During the hearing today, Senator Jeanne Shaheen [D] of New Hampshire  raised the questions of the FBI report and the change during the Obama Administration to resume diplomatic relations and other commercial ties asked if it would be in Cuba's interests to carry out targeted attacks at such a time?  This line of questioning was also continued by Senator Tom Udall [D] of New Mexico who also asked what would be their motive if the Cuban government were looking to increase ties with the U.S.  Palmieri responded in both cases that he would not speculate on the Cuban government motives, but that considering the nature of the regime that exercises total security control it is inconceivable that they do not know what is going on and could not stop them from being repeated.

Senator Tom Udall [D] of NM

However to those making this argument there is a simple response. On January 2, 2017 Cuban troops in Havana 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.” This would indicate that the Castro regime had other priories beyond normalized relations and trade with American companies. This was something that I raised in December of 2014 when debating Senator Udall on Channel 4.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in an interview with the AP on January 5, 2018 rejected the idea of sending diplomats back to Havana.“I’d be intentionally putting them back in harm’s way. Why in the world would I do that when I have no means whatsoever to protect them?” Tillerson told the AP on Jan. 5. “I will push back on anybody who wants to force me to do that. I still believe that the Cuban government, someone within the Cuban government can bring this to an end,” Tillerson added.

Senate Subcommittee to hold hearing on 24 U.S. government officials and spouses attacked in Havana, Cuba in 2016-2017

The mystery continues and answers are needed.

U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba

 Senator Marco Rubio will be presiding over a public hearing titled "Attacks on U.S. Diplomats in Cuba: Response and Oversight" at the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues on January 9, 2018 at 10:00am. There are numerous questions that have not been answered but there is one fact that has been established that is disturbing. Twenty four U.S. government officials and their spouses based in Havana were the victims of 50 attacks between November of 2016 and September of 2017 that caused serious harm.

It’s a documented FACT that 24 U.S. govt officials & spouses were victims of some sort of sophisticated attack while stationed in Havana 1/3

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 7, 2018

 It is also known that Canadian diplomats were also impacted and their diplomatic cables were describing the incidents as attacks, months before the U.S. publicly acknowledged them, on April 26, 2017. CBS News reported on these newly declassified cables on January 6, 2018.

This is bad timing for Senator Jeff Flake, who has worked for years in pushing normalized relations with the Castro regime, who on January 5, 2018 tried to spin that there was "no evidence of  a sonic attack." Whether sonic or not, the fact remains that two dozen American government officials and their dependents have been harmed.

The Associated Press reported on January 5, 2018 in an interview with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the danger to diplomats is not over in Havana:

Tillerson said he's not convinced that what he calls the "deliberate attacks" are over. He defended his September decision to order most U.S. personnel and their relatives to leave Cuba and said he won't reverse course until Cuba's government assures they'll be safe.
"I'd be intentionally putting them back in harm's way. Why in the world would I do that when I have no means whatsoever to protect them?" Tillerson told the AP on Jan. 5. "I will push back on anybody who wants to force me to do that."

Four months earlier on October 12, 2017 White House Chief of Staff John Kelly stated, "[w]e believe that the Cuban government could stop the attacks on our diplomats."

How did we get to this dismal point in U.S. - Cuba relations?

On December 17, 2014 President Barack Obama claimed that the previous U.S. - Cuba policy of containment had been static and not achieved anything, but the new policy not only coincided with a rise in repression in Cuba, the deaths of high profile dissidents, but also this insidious attack on U.S. diplomats.

News reporting indicates that beginning in November 2016 U.S. diplomats suffered injuries to their health following odd sounds being directed at them. The story did not go public until August 9, 2017 when CBS Radio was going to break the story leaked by angry victims, who believed that not enough had been done, and that the State Department was ignoring their suffering.

Last year on January 2, 2017 Cuban troops marched in a parade over which Castro presided chanting that they would repeatedly shoot President Obama, the first African-American president, in the head so many times that they would make a “hat of lead to the head.”  

In September of 2017, it was announced that non-essential U.S. personnel would be evacuated from the U.S. Embassy in Havana. Prior to December 2014, a fully staffed U.S. Interests Section (an embassy all but in name) in Havana had been doing a lot of good work in Cuba since 1977. There is now a skeleton crew.