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| Plans for his death? Castro |
The Central Intelligence Agency tried to assassinate Cuban strongman Fidel Castro in a voluminous number of ways, with one bizarre plot involving a tuberculosis-laced wetsuit that would be given as a gift to the Caribbean revolutionary. The CIA failed in its Cold War plots to kill Fidel Castro, but Wikileaks reveals that as recently as the handover of power to his younger brother, the US government was still making preparations for his death.
The diplomatic cable, classified "secret" and part of a batch released by former US Army Private Chelsea Manning, details American concerns about mass migration in the Caribbean in the event of Mr. Castro's death. The cable shows clairvoyance when it comes to the current Cuban refugee crisis, as the opening of the island could mean an end of easy residence permits for would-be Cuban exiles, prompting those who had even a desire to leave, to do so soon before the open-door policy ends.
The current exodus of Cubans who fear the door to an American residence permit will close with the end of the embargo has already placed a strain on territories from the Cayman Islands to large parts of Central America; with Nicaragua closing its border to Cuban refugees, causing tensions with Costa Rica.
The United States feared that the death of Fidel Castro would lead to the establishment of refugee camps in some Latin American countries where immigrants would be placed under strict control, something which could have happened had a late minute agreement not been reached by Panama and Costa Rica with Mexico to relocate the refugees throughout various Mexican cities, as Central American countries were bursting at the seams.
If Wikileaks provides any indication, it is extremely likely that the United States government was intimately involved in the negotiation process, as mass Cuban exodus is a matter with grave national security implications for the US, especially given the current political climate; President Obama probably does not want a crisis which could further inflate the apparent need for border closure proposals made by leading Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.
And if Wikileaks provides indication of anything else, it's that the current lifting of the embargo may have more to do with fears of Fidel Castro's death sparking a mass exodus for Florida than it does with altruistic motives by the Obama administration.
