WASHINGTON — At least 30 rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle were fired at the Cuban Embassy here April 30 shortly after 2 a.m. Seven people were inside at the time. None were injured. The bullets were sprayed over the front of the building, damaging the statue of Cuban independence leader José Martí. Some 10 ricocheted inside the building, Cuban Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas reported.
Washington is tightening its economic war against Cuba and its revolution. U.S. authorities have made no condemnation of the attack nor provided information to Cuba since the arrest of the alleged shooter.
The next day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ramped up Washington’s slanders against Cuban medical volunteers —- who go anywhere they’re asked to offer solidarity — as a Cuban brigade arrived in South Africa. “The regime in Havana has taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to continue its exploitation of Cuban medical workers,” he told reporters.
“When you see every day, absolutely every day, high-level officials of the U.S. government attacking Cuba, tightening the blockade,” Cabañas said in a May 4 interview with Prensa Latina, “and the U.S. officials gruesomely and immorally attack our brigades and our medical doctors, well, the verbal terrorism only lacked armed terrorism, and it has happened.”
The D.C. Metro Coalition in Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution condemned the attack and said it is organizing to stand in solidarity with Cuba in front of the embassy May 7.
“The Socialist Workers Party defends the Cuban Revolution as an example for working people in the U.S.,” said James Harris, Socialist Workers Party candidate for D.C. delegate to U.S. Congress. “I will be campaigning to build the May 7 protest.”