State Department report links Cuba to wide range of US protests, including George Floyd

The State Department in a new report linked Cuba to a range of protests in the U.S., including demonstrations surrounding the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

The 100-page document, which was released Monday, alleged that beginning in the 1960s, the Cuban regime “has served as the beating heart of a new and distinct kind of Marxism, forged around an overriding resentment and fundamental hatred of the United States and the broader West.”

“The Cubans devoted themselves to recruiting, cultivating and mobilizing a global coalition of activists, intellectuals, and political groups around this cause, building a sprawling revolutionary network that shaped a disproportionate share of America’s most famous and influential extremist movements, from the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground through to Antifa,” the report continued.

The report also drew connections between Havana and “powerful leftist nonprofits,” groups against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and socialist groups, as well as “Marxist militant organizations” around the U.S.

According to the report, Cuba had “gleeful support” for the George Floyd protests, with the country’s state media and those in its government painting the U.S. as a “systemically racist country morally unfit to criticize Cuba’s human-rights record” amid the demonstrations.

United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz earlier this month characterized Cuba as a national security threat. He also accused China and Russia of “collecting information around our military bases in Cuba.”

In May, CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials to reinforce a warning from President Trump of an invasion or military response against the island.

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