60 Minutes links Russia to Havana Syndrome and a speeding Mustang with high-tech equipment in Florida

Five-year "Havana Syndrome" investigation finds new evidence of who might be responsible

Embassy of the United States in Cuba overlooking the Malecón. [ Bjen78 ]

 

Eight years later, a string of attacks that started in 2016 and targeted Canadian and U.S. diplomats stationed at their respective embassies in Havana remain unsolved officially. However, after a five-year investigation, CBS Newsmagazine 60 Minutes concluded that Russia was responsible for the attacks, despite official denials from the US government.

“60 Minutes producers Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados discuss the evolution of their 5-year investigation into ‘Havana Syndrome,’ which led them to what one source calls "a receipt" for acoustic weapon testing done by a Russian intelligence unit.”

Officials in the Cuban government have also been quick to dismiss the Havana Syndrome, but the record shows that if Russia was testing an acoustic weapon on American and Canadian diplomats stationed in Havana, the Cuban secret police would know about it, report it to their superiors, and approve it. Havana's role in supporting Putin's illegal war in Ukraine, including the deployment of Cuban soldiers in Russian uniforms fighting on the front lines, underscores their strategic relationship with Moscow.

60 Minutes, March 31, 2024

Havana Syndrome mystery continues as a lead military investigator says bar for proof was set impossibly high

By Scott Pelley

March 31, 2024 / 7:42 PM EDT / CBS News

This report is the result of a joint investigation by 60 Minutes, The Insider, and Der Spiegel

Tonight we have important developments in our five-year investigation of mysterious brain injuries reported by U.S. national security officials. The injured include White House staff, CIA officers, FBI agents, military officers and their families. Many believe that they were wounded by a secret weapon that fires a high-energy beam of microwaves or ultrasound. This is our fourth story and for the first time, we have evidence of who might be responsible. Most of the injured have fought for America, often in secret. And they're frustrated that the U.S. government publicly doubts that an adversary is targeting Americans.

One of them is Carrie. We're disguising her and not using her last name because she's still an FBI agent working in counterintelligence. She says, in 2021, she was home in Florida when she was hit by a crippling force.

Carrie: And bam, inside my right ear, it was like a dentist drilling on steroids. That feeling when it gets too close to your eardrum? It's like that, you know, times ten. It was like a high pitched, metallic drilling noise, and it knocked me forward at, like, a 45 degree angle this way. 

She says she was by a window in her laundry room. 

[ Full transcript and video available here ]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-culprit-investigation-new-evidence-60-minutes-transcript/

"Foreign adversaries may be involved in Havana Syndrome, sources say." - CBS Evening News "Connection revealed between Havana Syndrome, speeding Mustang in Florida" - CBS Mornings

 Full report tonight on 60 Minutes on CBS.

 

National Security reporter Jeff Stein, and founder of Spy Talk gives his analysis on the latest installment of the CBS newsmagazine show 60 Minutes report on Havana Syndrome that points to the Kremlin. 

Two teasers, one on CBS News, and another on CBS Morning, offer  reasons for concern, and to question the official narrative.

This blog has been following this story since August 9, 2017 when spokesperson Heather Nauert in a State Department briefing revealed that two Cuban diplomats were expelled from the United States on May 23, 2017 in response to "incidents in Cuba."  According to U.S. officials five U.S. diplomats were targeted by a "sonic weapon" that led to "severe hearing loss" that led to some of them canceling their tours and returning early to the United States. [ Full entry here ]

 

On August 10, 2017 another shoe dropped, the Associated Press reported that Canadian government said that at least one Canadian diplomat in Cuba has also been treated for hearing loss. "Global Affairs Canada spokeswoman Brianne Maxwell said Canadian officials 'are aware of unusual symptoms affecting Canadian and US diplomatic personnel and their families in Havana.'" [ Full entry here ]

The attacks began in November 2016 during the Obama Administration which apparently had no knowledge of what was going on or downplayed it out of fear that it would negatively Cuba normalization policy.

The Daily Mail headline on September 20, 2017 stated "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."  

On January 9, 2018 three State Department officials testified 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. 

Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) 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.  [ Full blog entry ]

Injuries have been documented, and hypotheses to explain how they have been caused put forward, but no satisfactory explanation provided to date. 

Efforts to downplay the inconvenient fact that Cuba has a top notch intelligence service, and that such attacks on U.S. diplomats could not be carried out without their knowledge, and consent led to a letter to the editor in The Washington Post to set the record straight.

 

The Washington Post, October 30, 2020 

Opinion

Cuba has a long history of using sonic weapons

The Oct. 26 editorial “Another invisible enemy” was correct when it called for the perpetrators of sonic attacks on Americans in Cuba to be identified, Americans protected and a proper response delivered, but too many are quick to believe the claims from Cuban officials that nothing happened and that they had no knowledge of what caused the injuries.

The Castro regime has a history, stretching back decades, of harassing American diplomats such as: killing their pets, trying to run them down or crash into their vehicle and switching out mouthwash with urine. 

Furthermore, on Oct. 18, dissident Cuban artist Tania Bruguera described and recorded a sonic attack that caused her a headache and ear ache that she found difficult to tolerate. Two former Cuban political prisoners, Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez and Luis Zuniga, described at a forum held on Capitol Hill in November 2017 how prison officials used high-pitched sound to cause them physiological harm in 1979. This history and the recent attack against Ms. Bruguera using the same kind of sonic weapon with similar symptoms that had been visited on U.S. diplomats should invite greater scrutiny of Havana.

John Suarez, Falls Church

The writer is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba.

[ Full blog entry ]

Reflection On Nonviolence On Good Friday : Jesus’ Third Way

How to resist evil without doing evil.

And behold, one of those who accompanied Jesus put his hand to his sword, drew it, and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Matthew 26.51-52

The essence of Jesus's teachings is found in his Sermon on the Mount, and it moved Mohandas Gandhi greatly, and he embraced it.

"I have not been able to see any difference between the Sermon on the Mount and the Bhagavadgita. What the Sermon describes in a graphic manner, the Bhagavadgita reduces to a scientific formula. It may not be a scientific book in the accepted sense of the term, but it has argued out the law of love — the law of abandon as I would call it — in a scientific manner. The Sermon on the Mount gives the same law in wonderful language.  ... Today supposing I was deprived of the Gita and forgot all its contents but had a copy of the Sermon, I should derive the same joy from it as I do from the Gila."

This video contains audio and text of the entire Sermon on the Mount.

Christians who believe in the message of Jesus of Nazareth demonstrate that belief in actual practice as did a group of Catholic Monks in Algeria in 1996 now made known to the world in the film Of Gods and Men.  

Others continue to do so today around the world. What better day than Good Friday to reflect on those who took up the cross and followed and continue to follow Jesus? James Morris Lawson Jr.is 95 years old and has spent a life time following Jesus and continues to do it today. He is a Methodist minister, and a nonviolence practitioner.

 

Reverend James Lawson, prepared students for nonviolent action at a Fellowship of Reconciliation workshop  over half a century ago where he revealed its fundamental Christian nature.

"When you are a child of God... you try thereby to imitate Jesus, in the midst of evil. Which means, if someone slaps you on the one cheek, you turn the other cheek, which is an act of resistance. It means that you do not only love your neighbor, but you recognize that even the enemy has a spark of God in them, has been made in the image of God and therefore needs to be treated as you, yourself, want to be treated Jesus is very clear about this: "do unto others as you want others to do unto you." — which is a rather powerful ethic for personal relationships, regardless of whether family or school or community or nation." 

The documentary "A Force More Powerful" is about non-violence, and its power to change the world over the past century. It is worth noticing that faith and belief played a major role in these movements that achieved positive and lasting change.

Reverend Lawson is featured in the documentary and has been called the "architect of the civil rights movement." The good Reverend observed that “if you want to understand King, you must look at Jesus.” The message of Jesus and the example of what he went through on Good Friday, and the manner in which he did it is a powerful study in nonviolence, of taking on suffering, while forgiving your enemies.

 Holy Week is a good moment to reflect on the teachings of Jesus, and especially this passage from  Matthew 5.38-41.

"You have learnt how it was said: 'Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.' But I say to you, Offer the wicked man no resistance. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; if a man takes you to law and would have your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone orders you to go one mile, go two miles with him." Matthew 5.38-41

 Biblical scholar Walter Wink offers the following analysis, and looks to both history, and language to examine the third way offered by Jesus.

Expel Cuba from the UN Human Rights Council

Rosa María Payá, Cuba Decide and Julie Trebault, Int'l PEN at the UNHRC

Today, in the  in Geneva, Switzerland Rosa María Payá Acevedo addressed the UN Human Rights Council and called for the expulsion of Cuba from the UN Human Rights Council. Below is the text followed by the video provided by CubaDecide of her presentation.

ITEM 6: UPR outcomes – Cuba, UPR Report Consideration

My name is Rosa María Payá, our citizen initiative Cuba Decide defends the right of the Cuban people to live in democracy, a right that is denied by the constitution imposed by the leaders in my country.

Mr. President, Cuba should be expelled from this Council for its serious and systematic violations of human rights.

In April 2022, Russia was expelled from this Council. Today we officially call for the same to be done with Cuba, under article 8 of United Nations Resolution 60/251. The Cuban government is an ally of Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine and facilitates the sending of young Cubans to the Russian army.

The Cuban government uses state terrorism against its citizens, using the following methods:

1. The government extrajudicially executes its opponents: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled that the Cuban State is responsible for the murder of my father Oswaldo Payá, Cuban democratic leader, and Harold Cepero.

2. The government represses, imprisons and tortures those who think differently: There are more than 1000 people in prison in Cuba for expressing their opinion publicly. Among them Jose Daniel Ferrer, opposition leader systematically tortured and in danger of death.

3. The government violates fundamental human rights and prevents Cubans from prospering with the fruit of their labor, forcing the people into a deep humanitarian crisis.

Despite the hunger and repression imposed, hundreds of thousands of Cubans come out peacefully demanding a change of system to democracy.

We urge this Council to listen to the voices of our people and to demand that Cuban leaders submit to the sovereign will of the citizens. To this end, we urge the international community to demand that all electoral guarantees be respected in Cuba, including freedom of expression, association and access to information, the end of repression and the freedom of all political prisoners, with the objective of changing the system in a binding plebiscite and beginning the transition to democracy.

Mr. President, member states, it is time to stand with the Cuban people and expel Cuba from this Council.

 Join Rosa María Payá’s call to expel the Cuban dictatorship from the UN Human Rights Council by signing the petition, Expel Cuba from the UN Human Rights Council.  

A look back at addressing the UN Human Rights Council

The adoption of the Universal Periodic Review outcome on Cuba by the members of the UN Human Rights Council today presents an opportunity to focus on human rights challenges in Cuba, and some of the actions taken by activists over the years. There are currently over 1,000 political prisoners in Cuba, and at least another 38 were detained following nonviolent protests on March 17, 2024.

The situation in Cuba has worsened, but the repression is familiar.

The last time I addressed the UN Human Rights Council was in 2018 during the same session Sirley Ávila León spoke about the machete attack she suffered in Cuba in 2015, and the cycle of repression by the political police that led to that act of extreme violence.

My first foray into the international human rights body was in 2003 when it was called the UN Human Rights Commission. It was a baptism by fire in the immediate aftermath of nationwide crackdown on Cuban human rights defenders, independent journalists, and Project Varela petitioners by the communist dictatorship in Cuba. On two occasions during that session addressed what was taking place. This is a summary of second statement.

... "More than 100 human rights activists had suffered searches, arrests and expedited trials in Cuba.  Many had already been condemned to sentences of up to 26 years in prison for defending civil and political rights in the country.  On 7 April 2003, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet was tried without due process and today was facing up to 25 years in prison for defending human rights in Cuba.  In Cuban prisons, political prisoners were denied medical assistance as a form of punishment for upholding their ideas.  Highly dangerous criminals were used by State Security to attack imprisoned activities, as was the case of Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, a young activist whose jaw was broken in three parts, and who was severely beaten on three more occasions before being taken to the hospital."

Seven years earlier in 1996, Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, one of the deans of the Cuban human rights movement, addressed the UN Human Rights Commission shortly after his release from a Cuban prison. This is a short excerpt of that statement.

My name is Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, and I am the Vice-president of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization founded in Cuba in 1976 to observe the respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the island.

On the 15 of January 1992 I was arrested in my home by the Cuban political police; the second time in ten years. On October of that year I was sentenced to 4 years and eight months in prison for the sole crime of reporting to this Commission the violations of human rights committed by the government of my country. The labor of those volunteers of this Commission inside of Cuba are considered by the government as "enemy propaganda."

I will not enter into the details concerning the multiple irregularities of the judicial process always against me, nor about the conditions that I had to tolerate for more than three years. I will refer solely to one aspect of this my last experience in Cuban prisons.

When I was arrested in January of 1992, I enjoyed excellent general health for a man my age, 60 years then. I weighed around 170 pounds, and ran 5 to 6 kilometers every morning. Eight months later, when after a campaign of denunciations of my family I was transferred finally to a military hospital, I'd lost over 30 pounds and suffered from multiple ailments. 

He passed away on December 22, 1997 due to the lack of medical treatment, and poor prison conditions he endured in Cuba.

During my second visit in 2004 to the UN Human Rights Commission loaded down with posters, fliers, and reports entering and exiting was not a problem until a Falun Gong member handed me a flier for a parallel event they were holding in the same building in a room facing the session. A short time later I tried to go through the security screening to enter the UN Human Rights Commission session and was told I could not enter with the Falun Gong event flier. I had pounds of paper and posters criticizing a number of governments including the dictatorship in Cuba - those were "OK" but not the Falun Gong flier. I asked for the guards supervisor who repeated to tell me to choose: either leave the flier and enter or hang on to it and stay out.

The following day at the Falun Gong meeting in a room filled with human rights activists around the world to listen to the atrocities committed against this Chinese minority I learned that many others had experienced the same outrage but had remained silent not wanting to rock the boat. This led me to ask - isn't your job as a human rights activist precisely to challenge injustice?

Cuban dissidents who resisted the communist dictatorship in Cuba, and suffered greatly have traveled to Geneva over the years to denounce the crimes committed against them, and the Cuban populace more broadly. There are many more, but these are a few sampled to reflect the many.

Blanca Gonzalez, a Lady in White, addressed the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2005 on the plight of her son Normando Hernandez.

Former prisoner of conscience Omar Pernet Hernández, with his niece, Bertha Antúnez testified in a side event at the UN Human Rights Council in 2009.