Cuba solidarity campaigners accused US President Donald Trump yesterday of pandering to hard-line Republicans by expelling Cuban diplomats.
Britain’s Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) spoke out after US officials leaked government plans to order Havana to cut its Washington embassy staff by 60 per cent — later confirmed as the expulsion of 15 diplomats.
The decision came after the US State Department cut its staff in Havana by a similar proportion — from around 50 to about 20.
It followed bizarre claims that at least 21 US embassy staff in Havana — mainly spies operating under diplomatic cover — were made ill by “sonic attacks” starting in November last year, days after US President Donald Trump’s election.
Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a hardline opponent of Cuban socialism, applauded the administration's step, tweeting: the move to expel "Castro regime employees" from embassy "was the right decision."
CSC director Rob Miller said: “Unfortunately, it’s another victory for Marco Rubio and the hard-line anti-Cuban groups in Miami who are the bedrock of his support.”
“At a time when Trump is seeing his domestic support wane away, Rubio has become crucial as one of the few Republican cheerleaders for Trump’s policies,” he said.
He pointed out that Cuba had denied involvement in the alleged attacks — and the the US had not yet explicitly blamed Havana for the mysterious high-pitched noises.
Mr Miller added: “It appears that the entire incident is being blown up by Rubio and his accomplices who have repeatedly called for an ending of diplomatic relations with Cuba, a halt to US travel to the island and a return to overtly aggressive policies towards the island.”
Full diplomatic ties between the two countries were only restored in 2015 after more than 50 years following the breakthrough in detente the year before when then-US president Barack Obama released the Cuban Five — imprisoned for terms up to life in the 1990s for exposing anti-Cuban terrorist groups training in Florida.
But US legislation for the economic blockade of Cuba has not yet been repealed.
Mr Miller called the latest developments “a real set back in the recent efforts by Cuba and the previous Obama administration to foster a better more respectful relationship between the two countries.”
“The majority of Cuban Americans support the improvement of relations with Havana,” he said, but “an intransigent element remain committed to the failed policies of aggression and violence in their long standing 60 year ‘war’ against an independent and sovereign Cuba.”
Britain’s Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) spoke out after US officials leaked government plans to order Havana to cut its Washington embassy staff by 60 per cent — later confirmed as the expulsion of 15 diplomats.
The decision came after the US State Department cut its staff in Havana by a similar proportion — from around 50 to about 20.
It followed bizarre claims that at least 21 US embassy staff in Havana — mainly spies operating under diplomatic cover — were made ill by “sonic attacks” starting in November last year, days after US President Donald Trump’s election.
Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a hardline opponent of Cuban socialism, applauded the administration's step, tweeting: the move to expel "Castro regime employees" from embassy "was the right decision."
CSC director Rob Miller said: “Unfortunately, it’s another victory for Marco Rubio and the hard-line anti-Cuban groups in Miami who are the bedrock of his support.”
“At a time when Trump is seeing his domestic support wane away, Rubio has become crucial as one of the few Republican cheerleaders for Trump’s policies,” he said.
He pointed out that Cuba had denied involvement in the alleged attacks — and the the US had not yet explicitly blamed Havana for the mysterious high-pitched noises.
Mr Miller added: “It appears that the entire incident is being blown up by Rubio and his accomplices who have repeatedly called for an ending of diplomatic relations with Cuba, a halt to US travel to the island and a return to overtly aggressive policies towards the island.”
Full diplomatic ties between the two countries were only restored in 2015 after more than 50 years following the breakthrough in detente the year before when then-US president Barack Obama released the Cuban Five — imprisoned for terms up to life in the 1990s for exposing anti-Cuban terrorist groups training in Florida.
But US legislation for the economic blockade of Cuba has not yet been repealed.
Mr Miller called the latest developments “a real set back in the recent efforts by Cuba and the previous Obama administration to foster a better more respectful relationship between the two countries.”
“The majority of Cuban Americans support the improvement of relations with Havana,” he said, but “an intransigent element remain committed to the failed policies of aggression and violence in their long standing 60 year ‘war’ against an independent and sovereign Cuba.”