(This is the second of two parts. The first can be found in Part I.)

By Yvonne Hayes and Argiris Malapanis

The U.S. state department alleges that, through its “espionage empire,” Cuba has directed the activities of U.S. peace, civil rights, and labor activists for decades.

“Many of the most significant upheavals in recent American political history,” the document contends, “from the George Floyd riots to the rise of Antifa to the explosion of pro-terrorist activism on American college campuses — can be linked, in some way, shape, or form, to Cuban influence.”

The U.S. propagandists are expert at fabricating such “links.”

One example is the “proof” that, as early as 1960, Havana paid for the founding of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Yet the only evidence offered for any such financial connection is a personal check purportedly from a Cuban diplomat to cover part of the costs of a full-page New York Times ad titled “What Is Really Happening in Cuba?” There is not a shred of evidence that Fair Play activities were ever funded by anyone other than private U.S. donors.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Another example of alleged Cuban spycraft, outlined in the chapter “Racial Revolution,” are the allegations against Robert F. Williams.

“Williams is regarded as one of the intellectual godfathers of America’s militant ‘Black Power’ movement,” the document says. “But many of his ideas did not originate on American soil; they were projected into the country from Cuba.”^[1]

Blinded by their ingrained racism, the writers of this fable cannot grasp — or more accurately they try to conceal — that before Williams went to Cuba in 1960 he was already a well-known leader of the civil rights movement.

Williams’ thinking may have evolved during his exile. But his fundamental views of the world and of the right of oppressed peoples to self-defense were forged in the struggle to end Jim Crow segregation in the 1950s. His own experiences organizing the Black community in North Carolina to defend itself against the violence of the Ku Klux Klan — backed by racists in the local and state governments — shaped his outlook.

“Cuba played a foundational role in the formation of Black Power ideology,” the document claims. “Throughout both the twentieth and twenty-first century, the regime has sought to cultivate a fifth column of American black extremists through appeals to international racial solidarity — framing both Cubans and African-Americans as oppressed Third World peoples arrayed against the common enemy of white America.”

This racist dog whistle covers up the fact that it was the U.S. government that targeted these “extremists,” who were in fact Black nationalists and other proponents of civil rights. They didn’t need Cuba to tell them what to think or do. They rebelled to end the lynchings, assassinations, and terror often carried out in cahoots with government authorities. In their efforts to organize against institutionalized racism (a term Rubio’s novelists put in quotes), they became victims of Washington’s own spy network through an organized campaign of domestic spying and disruption — known as COINTELPRO.^[2]

Many of those who fought for Black liberation were inspired by the anticolonial revolts in Africa and elsewhere and took note of Cuba’s solidarity with the struggle to end colonialism.

But in trying to make the case that Cuba was orchestrating both the anti-colonial revolutions and the Black liberation movement in the U.S., Rubio’s writers skip over what Cuba actually did.

In particular, they are mum about Cuba’s role in defending newly independent Angola from the invasion by apartheid South Africa. Perhaps this history is too widely known, and resoundingly applauded.

Rubio and company would prefer not to remind us that the U.S. government supported the racist regime through diplomatic recognition, economic engagement designed to benefit the white minority, and intelligence cooperation that helped suppress the anti-apartheid movement. They would also rather cover up the fact that the defeat of the South African army by Angolan, Namibian, and Cuban forces in 1988 contributed to the ultimate fall of the racist apartheid regime half a decade later.^[3]

Guilty by association?

Another distortion to bolster the claim that Cuban spies “promote terrorism” is the mention — again completely without context — that, in 1982, “Florida law enforcement testified to catching Cuban intelligence affiliates teaching black youth in Miami to firebomb schools.”

What did the so-called witness really say? “The Antonio Maceo Brigade^[4] has had several of their members allegedly involved and linked with convicted black activist, Al Featherston, convicted during the early 1970’s for teaching young blacks to firebomb schools in the black community,” reads the transcript of a U.S. agent’s testimony.

First, Featherston was convicted in 1971; the Brigade was not even founded until 1977. Second, “allegedly involved and linked” to someone once convicted of a crime is hardly “caught in the act.” But this is the method of the Big Lie: drop a seed, repeat the falsehood, and hope it will take root.

It is a fact that Cuba — like every other nation — has an intelligence operation, and a good one. The island sits 90 miles from a hostile power with the world’s largest, most expensive, technologically advanced, and far-reaching spy network. For decades, the CIA and other U.S. agencies have put enormous resources toward the overthrow of the Cuban Revolution.

In addition to a massive propaganda machine, U.S. spies helped orchestrate the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, the 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian aircraft that killed all 73 people aboard, and more than 600 unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Washington has also shielded numerous anti-Cuba terrorists and organizations, including Alpha 66 and Brigade 2506 — both of which ran paramilitary training camps in South Florida — and provocateurs like Brothers to the Rescue.^[5]

It should be no surprise that Cuban revolutionaries try to stay on top of what Washington is cooking up, particularly the activities of the right-wing thugs to whom the U.S. government provides safe harbor.

But the idea that Cuba is “promoting terrorism” in the United States is absurd.

Criminalizing solidarity with Cuba

The state department alleges that ICAP (the Spanish acronym for the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples) is the hub of Cuba’s network of “spy operations.”

The Institute is the Cuban entity that collaborates with solidarity organizations and others around the world to help overcome obstacles created by the U.S. blockade, coordinating travel and deliveries of material aid. While ICAP outlines the needs of the Cuban people, it does not dictate how groups in the United States and elsewhere respond or organize themselves.

Yet many of these groups are now in Washington’s crosshairs. Some of them have already been notified that they are under investigation or have been subpoenaed to appear in court or produce records of their activity.

But the state department attacks are not limited to Cuba solidarity activities.

Recent protests against the U.S.-backed Israeli war in Gaza and the West Bank and ongoing resistance to the brutal campaign by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) against immigrant workers and their defenders are also supposedly inspired by Havana. The evidence? Organizations like CODEPINK and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — allegedly influenced by Cuban operatives — have promoted and joined such protests.

An insult to the intelligence of working people

A facet of the government mindset is the insulting lack of credit it gives to its political opponents for being able to think for ourselves. Washington sees working people and our allies as sheep, and the only commands they want us to follow are theirs.

Referring to the rise of Black consciousness in the 1960s, the document claims that Cuba told “the black American in Detroit [that he] was not a ‘worker,’ first and foremost; he was a colonized subject, a revolutionary brother of the Vietnamese peasant and the Congolese rebel, a member of a distinctive Third World colony embedded in the heart of the empire.”

It is beyond the comprehension of the likes of Trump and Rubio that a Black autoworker might be able to identify — without prodding — as both a worker and part of an oppressed nationality.

In each of the many examples trotted out in the state department treatise, these same elements — selective citation of fact, distortion of historical events, pictures and quotes taken out of context, silence on the role of U.S. policies and actions in sparking dissent, and utter contempt for the intelligence of the U.S. population — are readily apparent.

While trying to unravel the lies, the challenge is to stay focused on the serious threat Rubio’s proclamation portends.

The government has already opened investigations and prosecutions based on the September 2025 White House memorandum Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence. The stated goal is “to investigate and disrupt” the government’s political opponents under the guise of fighting “domestic terrorism.”

A number of the groups named in the state department treatise have begun to organize to defend themselves. A layer of public officials — including a group of congressional representatives led by Ilhan Omar, the U.S. congresswoman from Minnesota — are speaking out.

The People’s Forum, which received a congressional subpoena to produce “internal communications, organizational records, and financial documents by August 7,” is asking the public to sign on to an open letter opposing the attack on their organization and to contribute financially to its defense.

CODEPINK, the National Lawyers Guild, Metro DC DSA, and others have released statements condemning the State Department screed, defending their actions as constitutionally protected free speech, and reiterating their opposition to the U.S. blockade of Cuba.

So far, however, there is no coordinated response on a national level.

A campaign of education and outreach by a coalition of these groups and individuals alongside labor unions, civil rights organizations, antiwar veterans and others standing up to U.S. wars, ICE terror, and attacks on free speech would be a place to start. Teach-ins, public forums, and other united front actions can begin to build a movement in defense of civil liberties and to protect the organizations and activists now coming under fire.

(This was the second of two parts. The first can be found in Part I.)

NOTES

[1] Robert F. Williams was born in Monroe, North Carolina, in 1925. As a young man, he joined the “Great Migration” north and went to work in the factories of Detroit. After being drafted in 1944, Williams served in the military until the end of World War II, when he returned to Monroe.

There he got involved in the fight to desegregate the town, becoming president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). But in that town of just 12,000 people there was a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan of nearly 7,500. Faced with the violence of the Klan — and police — against the Black community, Williams became an advocate of his people’s right to armed self-defense.

In 1959, a white couple — known racists — were confronted by an angry crowd in Williams’ neighborhood. They sought refuge in his house but later accused him of “kidnapping.” Facing a federal warrant, Williams left North Carolina and eventually ended up in Cuba in 1961. He returned to face charges in 1969. The case was dismissed at the request of prosecutors in 1975.

[2] COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) was a secret, illegal program run by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1956 to 1971. Its main goal was to monitor, infiltrate, and even provoke political groups that were deemed dangerous to “national security.” Among its chief targets were civil rights and Black nationalist organizations and individuals, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. Its tactics included  promoting violence and illegal activity.

[3] In November 1975, the Cuban government, in response to a request from the government of Angola on the eve of its independence from Portugal, sent thousands of volunteer troops to that country to help defeat invading armed forces of South Africa. Over the next 12 years, the apartheid rulers repeatedly conducted military operations penetrating deep into Angolan territory.

However, in March 1988, South Africa was dealt a decisive military defeat at Cuito Cuanavale by the combined forces of the the Angolan army, Cuban volunteers, and fighters from SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organisation) in Namibia. The invaders were forced to withdraw from Angola. In subsequent negotiations the apartheid regime ceded independence to Namibia, which celebrated the end of colonial domination and the establishment of its own government in March 1990.

By puncturing once and for all the myth of the invincibility of the white supremacists, the victory at Cuito Cuanavale gave impulse to the battle within South Africa against apartheid — leading to the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) and to freedom for Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders imprisoned by the South African regime. Many view the Cuban role in Angola and the rout of South Africa at Cuito Cuanavale as signaling the beginning of the end of apartheid.

On July 26, 1991, ANC president Nelson Mandela — who was elected president of the country in 1994 — and Cuban president Fidel Castro spoke together for the first time at a historic rally in Matanzas, Cuba.

“The crushing defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale was a victory for the whole of Africa!” Mandela said in his speech. “The defeat of the apartheid army was an inspiration to the struggling people inside South Africa! Without the defeat at Cuito Cuanavale our organizations would not have been unbanned! The defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale has made it possible for me to be here today! … Cuito Cuanavale has been a turning point in the struggle to free the continent and our country from the scourge of apartheid!”

For more information see How Far We Slaves Have Come by Nelson Mandel and Fidel Castro.

It is also worth outlining how U.S. spy agencies, particularly the CIA, had collaborated closely with South African security forces to suppress the anti-apartheid movement. A prime example is the CIA’s tip-off that led to the arrest of Mandela in 1962 and his 27-year imprisonment. U.S. intelligence officers also trained and advised South African operatives, strengthening the regime’s capacity to monitor, detain, and eliminate anti-apartheid activists.

[4] The Antonio Maceo Brigade was founded in the mid-1970s, composed of young Cuban Americans sympathetic to the Cuban Revolution who had emigrated from Cuba as children. For much of the last half century, it was one of the main organizations of the Cuban diaspora that defended the Revolution and opposed U.S. policy toward Cuba.

[5] Brothers to the Rescue is a Florida-based group led by Cuban American counterrevolutionaries. In 1996, four of its members died as they were provocatively flying two planes toward Havana.

The planes, accompanied by a third aircraft piloted by Brothers to the Rescue founder José Basulto, repeatedly violated Cuban air space and ignored warnings to turn back. The Cuban air force shot them down over the country’s territorial waters as they were headed toward Cuba’s capital.

The February 24, 1996, incursion into Cuban airspace followed a long string of violations of Cuban sovereignty by the organization, provocations organized from U.S. soil with the U.S. government’s complicity. After the pilots were warned by Cuban air traffic control, Basulto responded that he knew their actions put them in danger, but that they were going to do it anyway as “free Cubans.”

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