University of Michigan researchers say they have answers on how U.S. diplomats and tourists were harmed in Cuba

This story is far from over

Spy tech may have caused the injuries to diplomats and tourists.

The Michigan Engineer News Center reported on March 1, 2018 that Kevin Fu, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan "reverse-engineered the attacks in a lab" and his team "showed how ultrasonic signals—outside the range of human hearing—can combine to produce audible and potentially dangerous tones similar to the undulating, high-pitched chirping that the diplomats described."

This attacks began in November of 2016 and were reported on in December of 2016. The State Department knew that diplomats were suffering brain trauma in Havana in February of 2017 and evacuated 40 Americans over the next two months.  On January 29, 2018 the news broke that 19 U.S. tourists had also suffered brain trauma in Cuba.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a preliminary report on February 15, 2018 and an accompanying editorial studying health impacts on 21 U.S. government employees in Havana between December 2016 and August 2017. These individuals had severe injuries and the bottom line on medical findings are that:

Concussion-like symptoms were observed in U.S. government personnel in Cuba after they reported hearing intensely loud sounds in their homes and hotel rooms and feeling changes in air pressure caused by an unknown source. The symptoms were consistent with brain injury although there was no history of head trauma.

There are efforts in the media to spin the news about the harm done to these diplomats and tourists without considering some difficult questions.

Secretary Tillerson had to protect his staff by limiting our work at @USEmbCuba to emergency services. While our investigation is ongoing, rather than find excuses, #Cuba should focus on helping to locate who or what is responsible for the harm caused to American citizens.

— Heather Nauert (@statedeptspox) March 6, 2018

First if, as the Castro regime claims, the attacks never happened and are mass hysteria, the sounds recorded crickets then why are there physical manifestations of lasting injuries?

Secondly, if as the University of Michigan engineering professor asserts that the harm done was an "accidental side effect of attempted eavesdropping" then why did these injuries began in November of 2016 and continue through August 2017? Only ending after news of the injuries went public.

Castro agents have used listening devices for decades targeting diplomats. What changed? Why didn't the Castro regime immediately stop it when the injuries began to pile up?

The State Department tonight raised the issue of Cuba's responsibility under the Vienna Convention to protect U.S. diplomats stationed in Cuba. The consequences are grave. Staff cutbacks at the Embassy in Cuba were to be permanent the State Department announced on March 2, 2018.

Questions, if true: Why wouldn’t the Cubans admit it? Wouldn’t the CIA arrived at this conclusion months ago? In the middle, Cuban families affected by visa suspensions. #Cuba #Havana https://t.co/8LwRrynlyt

— Nora Gámez Torres (@ngameztorres) March 3, 2018

Questions remain in this mystery, but three years later Obama's Cuba policy legacy can be summed up as: brain damaged diplomats, the sounds of crickets, and an internationally legitimized dictatorship.  Hopefully the current Administration will turn things around.

Journal of the American Medical Association: 21 U.S. Embassy Staff in Cuba had concussion-like symptoms

The mystery deepens and the injuries are serious.

U.S. Embassy in Havana

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a preliminary report on February 15, 2018 and an accompanying editorial studying health impacts on 21 U.S. government employees in Havana between December 2016 and August 2017. These individuals had severe injuries and the bottom line on medical findings are that:

Concussion-like symptoms were observed in U.S. government personnel in Cuba after they reported hearing intensely loud sounds in their homes and hotel rooms and feeling changes in air pressure caused by an unknown source. The symptoms were consistent with brain injury although there was no history of head trauma.

Castro regime officials on October of 2017 said talk of acoustic strikes was “science fiction” and accused Washington of “slander.” investigating U.S. complaints of attacks that sickened American diplomats in Havana. Denials later in October and their narrative was that the alleged noise behind the “sonic attacks” was coming from cicadas and crickets. Cuban scientists convened by the government argued that the symptoms were the product of a "mass psychogenic illness"(MPI). However the JAMA report said MPI was unlikely because some of the individuals had no idea others had been affected and it "is often associated with transient, benign symptoms with rapid onset and recovery often beginning with older individuals.”

Last month on January 9, 2018 the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing on the subject of the 2016-2017 attacks on U.S. diplomats and dependents stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. Senator Menendez asked when officials became aware that brain trauma was involved and Dr. Charles Rosenfarb, of the Medical Director for the Bureau of Medical Services, responded that the first patient was medically evacuated on February 6, 2017 and over the next two months evacuated 40 people.

Some Canadian diplomats were also impacted. The regime in Cuba has a long track record of outlaw behavior against foreign diplomats, but this would be an escalation. This also raises the question if concessions towards the Castro regime between 2014 and 2017 worsen the dictatorship's behavior?

The Journal of the American Medical Association

JAMA concludes that "[t]he unique circumstances of these patients and the clinical manifestations detailed in this report raise concern about a new mechanism for possible acquired brain injury from an exposure of unknown origin."

This is not to be taken lightly.

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.

Did State Department downplaying attacks on diplomats in Cuba endanger others?

The plot thickens... U.S. and Canadian diplomats harmed. French now testing their diplomats in Havana to see if they have also suffered injuries.

Diplomat woke up in a Havana hotel to a grinding, blaring cacophony. Moved a few feet noise stopped

 The Daily Mail headline today declared "Damning evidence Cuba's launched a sci-fi sonic weapon at America: How 21 US diplomats were hit by hearing and memory loss - and even mild brain damage - after suspicious attack." More disturbing is the allegation raised by CBS News that the U.S. State Department hid what was going on from Congress and the American people. In the fall of 2016 U.S. diplomats began to complain of "mild" traumatic brain injury and permanent hearing and/or memory loss. In May of 2017 two Cuban diplomats were expelled from the United States over the matter, but it was not made known until August 9, 2017.

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." Now the number of American diplomats and dependents injured stands at 21. Five Canadian diplomats and their families were also harmed. Now France has tested its own diplomatic staff in Havana for potential sonic injuries.

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 leading to diplomats and their families being seriously physically harmed.   The logical question that arises is a disturbing one: Did State Department lack of response and downplaying of attacks on US diplomats and their families in Cuba lead to more being harmed?

The State Department knew since November 2016 that American diplomats were being harmed in these attacks, but didn't make it public until August 9, 2017 when CBS News broke the story. 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. They would continue until August 2017. Cuban officials say they don't know whats going on. This matter should have been raised earlier.
 

Fact checking the AP for errors of omission on 21 US diplomats harmed in Cuba

What was left unsaid about the mystery in Cuba.

Fact checking the Associated Press for errors of omission

 
The Associated Press (AP) has released a remarkable article today titled "Cuba mystery grows: New details on what befell US diplomats" on what they described as the "least 21 U.S. victims in an astonishing international mystery."  The AP story then quotes Fulton Armstong, without providing any context into his background beyond "a former CIA official who served in Havana long before America re-opened an embassy there" who went on to claim that there was no "reasonable explanation" and that it was "just mystery after mystery after mystery."  This ignores a long history of harassment and violence against diplomats over the years, including during prior efforts of normalizing relations not to mention outlaw international behavior. The question that arises is how could someone who was in the CIA get the Castro regime so wrong?

What the AP forgot to mention
 
Fulton Armstrong, a harsh critic of U.S. pro-democracy programs suspected of leaking and spinning information to the Associated Press to compromise them was also a close confidante of Ana Belen Montes, a long time agent of  the Castro regime at the Pentagon. Mr. Armstrong has sought to undermine USAID's pro-democracy programs in Cuba and was caught red handed in 2014 fabricating information with a pro-regime spin. U.S. spy catcher Chris Simmons offered the following assessment at the time on his blog:

Armstrong is well-known for consistently minimizing Cuba’s ability to threaten U.S. interests and its continued support to terrorists. In one interview, Scott Carmichael – the senior Counterintelligence investigator for the Defense Intelligence Agency – said Montes was “on a first name basis” with the Armstrong. In fact, Montes and Armstrong confided in one another by phone into the final stages of her investigation.

There has been a decades long obsession in the U.S. establishment to cozy up to the Castro regime that achieved its first concrete achievements in 1977 during the Carter Administration, followed later on in 1993 during the Clinton Administration, and finally full normalization during the Obama Administration in 2014 despite numerous setbacks against U.S. national security. Fulton Armstrong, a former staffer to Senator John Kerry, has been an advocate for these efforts.

 The Associate Press has a pattern that stretches back years of publishing pro-Castro regime spin and self-censorship while at the same time seeking to minimize and marginalize Cuban democrats. In 2014 Yoani Sánchez  warned foreign news agencies of this practice: "Caution foreign news agencies! Your representatives in these lands are always in danger of becoming hostages, first, and then collaborators of the rulers." Sadly the Associated Press has not only been guilty of this in Cuba, but today in North Korea and and also in Nazi Germany until 1941.

Readers beware if you want to get spin free news on Cuba go elsewhere or read the AP articles with the same caution and skepticism that you read Castro regime publications.