Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez has blamed US authorities for failing to act against groups hostile to his government following an alleged petrol bomb attack on the island nation’s Washington embassy.
On Sunday evening, “the Cuban embassy in the US was the target of a terrorist attack by an individual, who launched two Molotov cocktails,” Rodriguez wrote on X (formerly Twitter) shortly after the claimed incident.
None of the embassy workers were hurt, the minister said, adding that the details are currently still being established.
“The anti-Cuban groups resort to terrorism when feeling they enjoy impunity, something that Cuba has repeatedly warned the US authorities about,” he stated.
The episode happened during a week when high-level leaders were visiting the UN General Assembly, including Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel. His arrival in New York was met with small-scale protests by Cuban immigrants, who marched through Manhattan, chanting “Freedom for Cuba” and “Down with Communism.”
Rodriguez recalled that the Cuban mission in Washington had been attacked previously in April 2020. A Cuban-born man suffering from mental health issues fired at the embassy using an AK-47 type rifle. Court documents indicated that he shouted, “Shoot me if you want to shoot me! I'm here! I'm American! I'm a Yankee!” According to Havana, the perpetrator had attended gatherings of groups that promote “aggression, hostility, violence, and extremism against Cuba.”
Two Molotov cocktails were also tossed at the Cuban embassy in Paris in July 2021. Rodriguez said at the time that the attack was due to Washington’s anti-Cuban polices, and that the US opposes the island’s socialist government and maintains harsh sanctions against the country. “I hold the US government responsible for its continued campaigns against our country that encourage this behavior and for its calls for violence, with impunity, from its territory,” the minister stressed.