Cuba coast guard says it shot and killed four on US-registered speedboat - Le Monde

Cuba's coast guard said on Wednesday, February 25, it shot dead four people and wounded six others traveling in a US-registered speedboat during an exchange of fire near Cuba's shores that came amid heightened tensions with Washington. Havana did not reveal the nationalities of the passengers aboard the Florida-registered boat nor why it was approaching the communist-run island, which is under strict US sanctions.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was seeking its own facts about the shooting and would "respond accordingly." "We're not going to base our conclusions on what they've (Cuba) told us, and I'm very, very confident that we will know the full story of what happened here," Rubio told reporters while on a trip to the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis. "As we gather more information, then we'll be prepared to respond accordingly."

Havana, a ghost town battered by shortages and US threats

In Washington, US Vice President JD Vance said the White House was "monitoring" the situation and that "hopefully it's not as bad as we fear it could be." Vance added that he had been briefed by Rubio, who is attending a summit of the Caribbean Community, but "we don't know a whole lot of details."

The attorney general of Florida – which lies just 160 kilometers from Cuba across the Florida Straits – said he had ordered an investigation into the killings.

'Illegal' US vessel

The Cuban interior ministry earlier said the coast guard encountered the "illegal" US vessel, whose registration number it gave as FL7726SH, one nautical mile from Cayo Falcones island off Cuba's northern coast. As the coast guard vessel approached, "shots were fired from the illegal speedboat," injuring the commander of the Cuban vessel, the ministry said.

"As a result of the clash, at the time of this report, on the foreign side, four aggressors were killed and six others were wounded," the ministry said, adding that the injured were evacuated and received medical assistance.

In its second statement the ministry released the names of seven of the people on the speedboat. It said most of the 10 had records in Cuba for "criminal and violent activity." A man sent from the US to take part in this operation was arrested on Cuban soil and confessed, it added.

The Cuban government frequently reports incursions by speedboats from the US into its territorial waters. The interior ministry said it was still investigating the incident and remained committed to protecting Cuban waters.

People smuggling

Incursion incidents are often related to people smuggling to the US or drug trafficking, and have included chases, shootouts and armed attacks on border guards. Shortages of food and medicine and daily blackouts drove an exodus from the island in recent years, with many heading to southern Florida, which has received waves of Cuban migration since the 1960s.

Wednesday's shootings came as Washington softened a virtual oil siege of the island imposed by President Donald Trump in January after the US ouster of top Cuba ally, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. Before Maduro's ouster by US forces on January 3, Cuba had relied on Venezuela, once a major oil producer, for about half its fuel needs.

Cuba's economy and stability are shaken by the Venezuela crisis

Faced with an outcry from Caribbean leaders, worried that starving 9.6 million Cubans of oil would cause the economy to collapse, Washington said it would allow shipments of Venezuelan oil for "commercial and humanitarian use."

The announcement came during a summit of Caribbean nations attended by Rubio, a Cuban-American who has spent his career hoping to topple Havana's government. The Treasury Department said the Venezuelan oil would need to go through private businesses and not the Cuban government or the military apparatus that controls much of the island's economy.

'The only thing left to do is leave': Cuba pushed to the brink

The US oil blockade in place for over a month has brought an already crumbling Cuban economy, which has been under a US trade embargo since shortly after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, to the brink. Rubio, also on Wednesday, warned that restrictions would be added back on Cuba's imports of Venezuelan oil if Havana violated the "spirit" of a recent easing of the US embargo.

Reiterating that oil imports would be allowed via Cuba's small private sector, Rubio told reporters: "If we catch the private sector there playing games and diverting it, to the regime or to the military (controlled) company – if we find that they're moving that stuff around in ways that violate the spirit and the scope of these permissions, those licenses will be canceled."