The State Department said Friday that the U.S. would permanently reduce the number of people at the U.S. embassy in Cuba, after mysterious attacks that triggered an emergency withdrawal of U.S. officials.
“On Monday, March 5, a new permanent staffing plan will take effect,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert’s office said Friday. “The embassy will continue to operate with the minimum personnel necessary to perform core diplomatic and consular functions, similar to the level of emergency staffing maintained during ordered departure. The embassy will operate as an unaccompanied post, defined as a post at which no family members are permitted to reside.”
Two dozen Americans deployed to Cuba suffered a strange harm, “a concussion without an impact,” as one researcher put it, that produced an array of “cognitive issues,” including hearing and memory loss. The incidents took place gradually from November of 2016 through August of 2017. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expelled most of the Cuban diplomats from the United States and ordered an investigation, but the investigators remain perplexed even as the Cuban government denies responsibility.
“We still do not have definitive answers on the source or cause of the attacks, and an investigation into the attacks is ongoing,” Nauert’s office said. “The health, safety, and well-being of U.S. government personnel and family members are of the greatest concern for Secretary Tillerson and were a key factor in the decision to reduce the number of personnel assigned to Havana.”
Trump and other U.S. officials doubt Cuba’s denials. “I do believe Cuba is responsible,” the president said in October.
If Cuba isn’t directly responsible, lawmakers believe the regime at least knows who is to blame for the incidents.
“Cuba is a very tightly controlled society with a very strong intelligence service and strong medical community,” Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “I think the burden is on them to prove that they have no involvement in what is going on.”
