Cuba must find hearing ‘health attack’ culprits, says US
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says US diplomats in Havana have been the victims of ‘‘health attacks’’ that left them with hearing loss – the most definitive US statement yet on a series of mysterious incidents.
His comments yesterday came two days after the State Department issued a vaguely worded statement saying there had been ‘‘incidents which have caused a variety of physical symptoms’’. US officials later revealed that American diplomats had suffered unexplained losses of hearing. On Friday, Canada’s government said at least one Canadian diplomat in Cuba had also been treated for hearing loss.
‘‘We hold the Cuban authorities responsible for finding out who is carrying out these health attacks on not just our diplomats but, as you’ve seen now, there are other cases with other diplomats involved,’’ Tillerson said.
In mid-2016, several US diplomats began suffering unexplained losses of hearing, according to officials with knowledge of the case. Some of the symptoms were so severe that they were forced to cancel their tours early and return home.
The officials said the hearing loss appeared to have been caused by the deliberate use of some sort of sonic device operating outside the range of audible sound.
Former diplomats and students of US-Cuba relations said they found it inexplicable that Cuba would have tried to harm US and Canadian diplomats, particularly at that time, as US President Barack Obama was reopening diplomatic relations with the communist-run island.
Attacking Canadian diplomats would be an assault on one of Cuba’s most important trading partners and the largest source of tourists to the island. The Cuban government said that ‘‘Cuba has never permitted, nor will permit, that Cuban territory be used for any action against accredited diplomatic officials or their families, with no exception’’.
John Caulfield, the head of the US Interests Section in Cuba from 2011 to 2014, said previous aggressive tactics against US and Canadian diplomatic staff largely stopped by late 2013 and 2014, as US and Cuban officials secretly negotiated the thaw between their countries.
He said he believed the likeliest explanation for the diplomats’ mysterious deafness was ‘‘a new surveillance technique gone bad’’.
‘‘I do not believe they would randomly cause harm to this variety of people.’’