Cuba and Puerto Rico have a long history together. Both were colonies of Spain and then territories of the United States. Cuba became an independent nation, while Puerto Rico has continued as a U.S. territory. It is often said that Puerto Rico and Cuba are “two wings of the same bird.”
A recent report from the U.S. State Department outlines connections between Cuba and Puerto Rico’s separatist movement.
Cuba’s international goals
In 1966, Puerto Rico’s pro-independence faction sent representatives to Cuba’s Tricontinental Conference. The conference, officially called “The First Solidarity Conference of the Peoples for Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” was described in closing comments as “a gathering in which the revolutionary representations of 82 peoples have met to discuss problems of common interest” and “a conference involving the problems of the international communist movement.”
Following the conference, according to the report, Fidel Castro’s government focused on fomenting armed revolution in the Americas. Cuba bankrolled revolutionary organizations throughout Latin America and recruited activists to be trained in military skills, explosives, and urban guerrilla tactics. The report claims that members of ethnic minorities in the United States were targeted for recruitment. These efforts included separatists in Puerto Rico.
Terrorist organizations
Among the Puerto Rican individuals trained for revolutionary action in Cuba, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos was one of the best known. According to the FBI, he was trained in Cuba as an “intelligence officer ” — a spy. “Until his death, ” the FBI reports, “Ojeda was the leader of and spokesman for the Macheteros. The publicly stated goal of the Macheteros is to obtain the independence of Puerto Rico by armed struggle against the United States government. The FBI considers the Macheteros to be a terrorist organization.”
The State Department report also associates Ojedo Rios with the Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), also considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. The report details violent crimes committed by members of these two organizations, including armed bank robbery, bombings, and murders. The Federation of American Scientists reports that FALN was responsible for “72 actual bombings, 40 incendiary attacks, 8 attempted bombings and 10 bomb threats, resulting in 5 deaths, 83 injuries, and over $3 million in property damage.”
The Macheteros were, according to the State Department report, “a Cuban front.” The report goes on to say, “Puerto Rican extremists’ links to Cuba were visible in the infrastructure of their attacks. When the Macheteros fired an anti-tank rocket at the building housing the FBI San Juan headquarters in 1983, they used U.S. military hardware that had been captured in Vietnam and subsequently shipped to Cuba.”
The main point
The report is intended to demonstrate that Cuba is a real and present threat to the United States. “From its perch off the coast of Florida, modern Cuba plays a key role in supporting major foreign terror networks…the regime continues to operate an extensive hard intelligence network in the United States, with significant penetration into sensitive civilian and military institutions on American territory,” the report states.
The State Department report also explains: “The danger of this intelligence penetration is only compounded by Cuba’s new alliances, as the island hosts a growing number of foreign military, intelligence, and terrorist installations on its own soil – posing a unique threat to American homeland security. These various threads can only be understood through the prism of the Cuban regime’s ideological foundation, imbued by its founder with the singular goal of conquering the neighboring United States.”
Responses to the Cuba Report
Puerto Rico-born New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) joined other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus in a statement criticizing the report on Cuba. “Trump appears hellbent on taking America back 70 years to the height of Cold War McCarthyism, when hawkish foreign policy was paired with unsubstantiated accusations of communist subversion and political repression against dissidents at home,” they wrote. “We condemn this report’s attack on Americans’ constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. We denounce this administration’s irresponsible attacks against civil society organizations, activists, journalists, labor leaders, Members of Congress, elected officials, and private individuals based on their advocacy for peaceful foreign policy and social justice at home.”
In a post on X, she accused Marco Rubio of creating “a chilling effect among groups who oppose his radical right-wing positions.”
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) is another member of Congress who made a public response to the report, saying, “It may be the stupidest, most fantastical, most biased thing I’ve ever read from a governmental agency.”
On the other hand, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), a daughter of Cuban exiles, posted a link to the report with the comment, “ The State Department’s report puts the evidence on the record: Cuba has been the command center.”
Overall, positive and negative reactions are split along party lines.
Download the State Department’s Cuba Report.
Cuba Again Calls for Puerto Rican Independence; Puerto Rico and U.S. Officials Respond
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