Cuba has no troops in Venezuela and engages in no security operations there but maintains the right to carry out military and intelligence cooperation, a top Cuban diplomat said Wednesday in his government’s most detailed response yet to US accusations that its forces are propping up President Nicolás Maduro.
Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s director-general of US affairs, told The Associated Press in Washington that the US is falsely accusing his country of having more than 20,000 troops and intelligence agents in Venezuela.
De Cossío said there are roughly 20,000 Cubans in Venezuela but virtually all are medical workers.
“There are no troops,” he said in English. “Cuba does not participate in military operations nor in security operations in Venezuela.”
De Cossío said that despite the lack of Cuban boots on the ground, he could not deny the existence of intelligence cooperation because “I don’t have that information.” But broader intelligence or military cooperation would be “totally legitimate,” he added.
“The United States has over 800,000 Americans stationed around the world with over 600-700 military bases anywhere in the world. Any two countries in our region have military or intelligence cooperation and we have it with many countries. So it is totally legitimate, it is a sovereign right of Cuba and Venezuela to do so,” de Cossío said.
“But what I am saying is that in spite of having that right, there are no military personnel of Cuba or troops, nor do we participate in any military or security operation as is constantly alleged,” he added.
Cuba and Venezuela have had an extraordinarily tight alliance over the last two decades, forged when Cuban leader Fidel Castro counseled Hugo Chávez of Venezuela on surviving a coup in 2002. The relationship has since centered on Venezuela sending Cuba an estimated $30 billion worth of oil between 2003 and 2015, in exchange for Havana dispatching tens of thousands of medical workers and other government employees. Cuban programs in Venezuela have ranged from preventive health care to sports coaching and agronomy. According to US officials and Venezuelan defectors, they also include intelligence, security and military cooperation.
“Cuban intelligence forces, who have suppressed and censored their people for 60 years, have invaded Venezuela,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican seen as a major influence on the Trump administration’s Latin America policy. “The Cuban regime provides security for Nicolás Maduro, who no longer trusts his countrymen, and actively leads operational assistance to crush the Venezuelan opposition.”
Ben Rhodes, who negotiated detente with Cuba as a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the Trump administration is confusing doctors with military and intelligence agents but it is indisputable that Cuba has worked closely with the Venezuelan government on security matters.