The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded on Tuesday to Cuban figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel predicting a “bloodbath” in the event of American action against the communist regime by offering its support to Cuba and demanding an end to American sanctions. Díaz-Canel made his comment in response to a report by the website Axios claiming that American authorities had reason to believe that Russia and Iran had supplied hundreds of drones to the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and that American officials were studying a response to that threat. The report also claimed that the Communist Party was considering drone strikes on Florida, among other targets. Cuba has been ruled by a violent communist insurgency since the 1959 Fidel Castro coup d’etat and is a designated state sponsor of terrorism, maintaining ties with groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Hezbollah, among others.
The Cuban government, through various officials, attempted to downplay the report as absurd or ridiculous. Díaz-Canel, who serves as the face of the Cuban government, issued a statement declaring that the “threats” from the United States allegedly represented by the Axios report could lead to mass killing. “If they [the alleged threats] are to materialize,” he wrote on social media, “they will provoke a bloodbath of incalculable consequences, plus the destructive impact on peace and regional stability.” “Cuba, which already suffers multidimensional aggression from the U.S., does have the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself from a bellicose assault,” he continued, “which cannot be logically or honestly interpreted as an excuse to impose war against the noble Cuban people.”
