HAVANA: Cuba paid tribute on Thursday to 32 soldiers killed in the US military strike that ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, in a ceremony attended by revolutionary leader Raul Castro.
Havana, under pressure from US President Donald Trump, had decreed two days of tribute for the men, some of whom had been assigned to Maduro’s protection team.
Twenty-one of the soldiers were from the Cuban interior ministry, which oversees the intelligence services, officials have said. The others were from the military.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Castro, the 94-year-old retired former Cuban leader, were present in full military uniform to receive the soldiers’ remains early Thursday.
Their urns, draped in Cuban flags, were unloaded from a plane at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport, according to footage broadcast on state TV.
At the event, Interior Minister General Lazaro Alberto Alvarez expressed the country’s respect and gratitude for the soldiers he said had “fought to the last bullet” during US bombings and a raid by US special forces who seized Maduro and his wife from their Caracas residence on January 3.
“We do not receive them with resignation; we do so with profound pride,” the minister added, and said the United States “will never be able to buy the dignity of the Cuban people.”
The soldiers’ bodies were then transported in Jeeps to the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, with Cubans lining the streets and applauding the procession.
Residents of the capital can pay their respects throughout the day, which will close with a gathering outside the US embassy in Havana.
‘Manipulation’
The homage serves as an opportunity for Cuba to make a display of national unity at a time it is batting away pressure from US President Donald Trump.
Trump on Sunday urged Cuba to “make a deal,” the nature of which he did not divulge, or face the consequences.
The Republican president, who says Washington is now effectively running Venezuela, has vowed to cut off all oil and money that Caracas had been providing to ailing Cuba.
Cuba, which is struggling through its worst economic crisis in decades, has reacted defiantly to the US threats even as it reels from the loss of a key source of economic support.
Havana has dismissed as “political manipulation” a US announcement of humanitarian aid for victims of Hurricane Melissa, which hit last October and killed nearly 60 people across the Caribbean.
“The US government is exploiting what might seem like a humanitarian gesture for opportunistic purposes and political manipulation,” Cuba’s foreign ministry said in a statement in response.
It added Washington had not been in touch about the delivery, which it would welcome “without conditions.”
Jeremy Lewin, the senior US official for foreign assistance, on Thursday cautioned Havana not to “politicize” the help.
“We look at this as the first, the beginning of what we hope will be a much broader ability to deliver assistance directly to the Cuban people,” he said.
US-Cuba relations have been tense for decades but hit a new low after the US capture of Maduro and his wife.
Twenty-three Venezuelan soldiers were also killed in the US strike that saw Maduro and his wife whisked away to stand trial in New York on drug-trafficking charges.
Cuba pays tribute to soldiers killed in Maduro capture
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Cuba pays tribute to soldiers killed in Maduro capture
- President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Castro, the 94-year-old retired former Cuban leader, were present in full military uniform to receive the soldiers’ remains
- Twenty-three Venezuelan soldiers were also killed in the US strike that saw Maduro and his wife whisked away to stand trial in New York
End of US-Russia nuclear pact a ‘grave moment’: UN chief
- Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the United States and Russia to quickly sign a new nuclear deal, as the existing treaty was set to expire in a “grave moment for international peace and security.”
The New START agreement will end Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” Guterres said in a statement.
The UN secretary-general added that New START and other arms control treaties had “drastically improved the security of all peoples.”
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time — the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” he said, without giving more details.
Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework.”
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads but arms agreements have been withering away.
New START, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads — a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.
