On the outskirts of the sleepy Cuban town of Bejucal, a rutted road that winds its way through the jungle ends at a rusty barbed-wire fence. A sign warns: “Do not pass. Military Zone.”
What lies beyond remains largely a mystery, though the US government has long suspected China of running an intelligence-gathering operation at the Soviet-era site.
a reporter from Reuters traveled to Bejucal this week, gaining unusual access to the area around the site that remains a black box, even for locals, but has come to light after the US government raised concerns that Beijing could be using the island as a spy post.
He The Wall Street Journal quoted US officials last week saying that a new effort by China’s security services was underway in Cuba, at a time when relations between Beijing and Washington are at a multi-decade low.
Reuters he saw giant satellite dishes high on a ridge above the town, just topping a row of royal palms. A large closed dome of rusty white metal—the kind that houses antennae—loomed over the dark jungle, its flanks decorated with cryptic black triangles, some inverted. Unidentified men on motorbikes in plain clothes photographed the reporters.
The little-known base, just 187 kilometers from Key West, Florida, is believed by the United States to be used to intercept electronic communications from Washington, according to a November 2022 Federal Communications Commission document.
“(Communist Party of China) maintains a physical presence at Soviet-era intelligence facilities in Bejucal, in what appears to be an intelligence-gathering operation,” the FCC document states, citing a 2018 report by the Commission. US-China Economic and Security Review.
Those concerns were, in part, cited as reasons for denying an application to connect Cuba with the United States through an ARCOS-1 submarine telecommunications cable, according to the document, drafted by a commission that includes members of the Department of Homeland Security. United States and the Department of Justice.
China denied on Monday that it was using Cuba as a spy base. Havana did not respond to Reuters questions about the Bejucal military base but has dismissed the allegations as a fabricated argument by Washington intended to justify the decades-long economic and trade embargo against the island.
The United States said on Monday that China upgraded its intelligence-gathering facility in Cuba in 2019, but the White House National Security Council did not respond to questions from Reuters about whether Bejucal hosted the facility, or whether he remained concerned about the site.
In an undulating countryside around various palm, sugarcane, and banana plantations, many Cubans around Bejucal still live, as they did decades ago, working on farm plots, traveling by bike or horseback, and with often internet coverage. irregular.
Arnaldo Pérez, a 61-year-old farmer, has spent his life in Bejucal and told Reuters he had no idea who might be behind the sprawling green and white saucer-shaped antennae wedged into the hills above the town.
“I know that has something to do with the military,” Perez said, gesturing toward the ridge as he rode his horse and carriage into town. “But I’m a country person. I mind my own business.”
“There are rumors”
The farming town of Bejucal has long been a place of secrets. Located about 33 kilometers from Havana, it gained notoriety after American spy planes discovered a series of Soviet nuclear warheads in the midst of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
None of the people Reuters spoke to had seen or heard references to Chinese involvement in recent years at Bejucal, though many said they believed Russia had, at one point, access to the base.
The deterioration in US-Russia relations due to the invasion of Ukraine has fueled speculation that President Vladimir Putin may decide to reopen a once sprawling Soviet-era spy outpost at the base in Lourdes. , in Havana, a Cold War relic closed in the early 2000s.
Onelvis Despaigne, a 36-year-old farm worker who lives on the outskirts of the base, told Reuters on Monday that he had not yet heard media reports about alleged plans by China to spy from Cuba.
But if they were true, he said, he would soon find out.
“There are rumors,” he said, smiling as he cleared the lawn with a machete. “Everyone knows everything here,” she added.
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