Remains of 32 Cuban officers killed during strike on Venezuela repatriated as US threat lingers

Cuban sol­diers wear­ing white gloves marched out of a plane on Thurs­day car­ry­ing urns with the re­mains of the 32 Cuban of­fi­cers killed dur­ing a stun­ning U.S. at­tack on Venezuela as trum­pets and drums played solemn­ly at Ha­vana’s air­port.

Near­by, thou­sands of Cubans lined one of Ha­vana’s most icon­ic streets to await the bod­ies of colonels, lieu­tenants, ma­jors and cap­tains as the is­land re­mained un­der threat by the ad­min­is­tra­tion of U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

The sol­diers’ shoes clacked as they marched stiff-legged in­to the head­quar­ters of the Min­istry of the Armed Forces, next to Rev­o­lu­tion Square, with the urns and placed them on a long ta­ble next to the pic­tures of those killed. Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple paid their re­spects, salut­ing the urns or hold­ing their hand over their heart, many of them drenched from stand­ing out­side in a heavy down­pour.

Thurs­day’s mass fu­ner­al was on­ly one of a hand­ful that the Cuban gov­ern­ment has or­ga­nized in al­most half a cen­tu­ry.

Hours ear­li­er, state tele­vi­sion showed im­ages of more than a dozen wound­ed peo­ple de­scribed as “com­bat­ants” ac­com­pa­nied by Cuban For­eign Min­is­ter Bruno Ro­dríguez ar­riv­ing Wednes­day night from Venezuela. Some were in wheel­chairs.

Those in­jured and the re­mains of those killed ar­rived as ten­sions grow be­tween Cu­ba and the U.S., with Trump re­cent­ly de­mand­ing that the Caribbean coun­try make a deal with him be­fore it is “too late.” He did not ex­plain what kind of deal.

Trump al­so has said that Cu­ba will no longer live off Venezuela’s mon­ey and oil. Ex­perts warn that the abrupt end of oil ship­ments could be cat­a­stroph­ic for Cu­ba, which is al­ready strug­gling with se­ri­ous black­outs and a crum­bling pow­er grid.

‘That will al­ways unite us’

Of­fi­cials un­furled a mas­sive flag at Ha­vana’s air­port as Pres­i­dent Miguel Díaz-Canel, clad in mil­i­tary garb as com­man­der of Cu­ba’s Armed Forces, stood silent next to for­mer Pres­i­dent Raúl Cas­tro, with what ap­peared to be the rel­a­tives of those killed look­ing on near­by.

Cuban In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Lázaro Al­ber­to Ál­varez Casa said Venezuela was not a dis­tant land for those killed, but a “nat­ur­al ex­ten­sion of their home­land.”

“The en­e­my speaks to an au­di­ence of high-pre­ci­sion op­er­a­tions, of troops, of elites, of su­prema­cy,” Ál­varez said in ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to the U.S. “We, on the oth­er hand, speak of faces, of fam­i­lies who have lost a fa­ther, a son, a hus­band, a broth­er.”

Ál­varez called those slain “he­roes,” say­ing that they were an ex­am­ple of hon­or and “a les­son for those who wa­ver.”

“We reaf­firm that if this painful chap­ter of his­to­ry has demon­strat­ed any­thing, it is that im­pe­ri­al­ism may pos­sess more so­phis­ti­cat­ed weapons; it may have im­mense ma­te­r­i­al wealth; it may buy the minds of the wa­ver­ing; but there is one thing it will nev­er be able to buy: the dig­ni­ty of the Cuban peo­ple,” he said.

Thou­sands of Cubans lined a street where mo­tor­cy­cles and mil­i­tary ve­hi­cles thun­dered by with the re­mains of those killed.

“They are peo­ple will­ing to de­fend their prin­ci­ples and val­ues, and we must pay trib­ute to them,” said Car­men Gómez, a 58-year-old in­dus­tri­al de­sign­er, adding that she hopes no one in­vades giv­en the on­go­ing threats.

When asked why she showed up de­spite the dif­fi­cul­ties Cubans face, Gómez replied, “It’s be­cause of the sense of pa­tri­o­tism that Cubans have, and that will al­ways unite us.”

‘Peo­ple are up­set and hurt’

Cu­ba re­cent­ly re­leased the names and ranks of 32 mil­i­tary per­son­nel — rang­ing in age from 26 to 60 — who were part of the se­cu­ri­ty de­tail of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro dur­ing the raid on his res­i­dence on Jan­u­ary 3. They in­clud­ed mem­bers of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Armed Forces and the Min­istry of the In­te­ri­or, the is­land’s two se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.

Cuban and Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties have said that the uni­formed per­son­nel were part of pro­tec­tion agree­ments be­tween the two coun­tries.

A demon­stra­tion was planned for Fri­day across from the U.S. Em­bassy in an open-air fo­rum known as the An­ti-Im­pe­ri­al­ist Tri­bune. Of­fi­cials have said they ex­pect the demon­stra­tion to be mas­sive.

“Peo­ple are up­set and hurt. There’s a lot of talk on so­cial me­dia; but many do be­lieve that the dead are mar­tyrs” of a his­toric strug­gle against the Unit­ed States, an­a­lyst and for­mer diplo­mat Car­los Alzu­garay told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

The first mass fu­ner­al in decades

In Oc­to­ber 1976, then-Pres­i­dent Fi­del Cas­tro led a mas­sive demon­stra­tion to bid farewell to the 73 peo­ple killed in the bomb­ing of a Cubana de Aviación civil­ian flight fi­nanced by an­ti-rev­o­lu­tion­ary lead­ers in the U.S. Most of the vic­tims were Cuban ath­letes.

In De­cem­ber 1989, of­fi­cials or­ga­nized “Op­er­a­tion Trib­ute” to hon­or the more than 2,000 Cuban com­bat­ants who died in An­go­la dur­ing Cu­ba’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the war that de­feat­ed the South African army and end­ed the apartheid sys­tem. In Oc­to­ber 1997, memo­r­i­al ser­vices were held fol­low­ing the ar­rival of the re­mains of guer­ril­la com­man­der Ernesto “Che” Gue­vara and six of his com­rades, who died in 1967.

The lat­est mass bur­ial is crit­i­cal to hon­or those slain, said José Luis Piñeiro, a 60-year-old doc­tor who lived four years in Venezuela.

“I don’t think Trump is crazy enough to come and en­ter a coun­try like this, ours, and if he does, he’s go­ing to have to take an as­pirin or some painkiller to avoid the headache he’s go­ing to get,” Piñeiro said. “These were 32 he­roes who fought him. Can you imag­ine an en­tire na­tion? He’s go­ing to lose.”

Cu­ba riled by US aid for hur­ri­cane re­cov­ery

A day be­fore the re­mains of those killed ar­rived in Cu­ba, the U.S. an­nounced $3 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al aid to help the is­land re­cov­er from the cat­a­stroph­ic Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.

The first flight took off on Wednes­day, and a sec­ond flight was sched­uled for Fri­day. A com­mer­cial ves­sel al­so will de­liv­er food and oth­er sup­plies.

Je­re­my Lewin, the State De­part­ment of­fi­cial in charge of for­eign as­sis­tance, said the U.S. was work­ing with Cu­ba’s Catholic Church to dis­trib­ute aid.

“There’s noth­ing po­lit­i­cal about cans of tu­na and rice and beans and pas­ta,” he said Thurs­day, warn­ing that the Cuban gov­ern­ment should not in­ter­vene or di­vert sup­plies. “We will be watch­ing, and we will hold them ac­count­able.”

Lewin said he saw no con­tra­dic­tion be­tween cut­ting off Venezue­lan oil and of­fer­ing aid, say­ing that “the Cuban regime was tak­ing il­le­git­i­mate prof­its from the nar­co-ter­ror­ists.”

He said the U.S. hopes that de­liv­er­ing aid via the Catholic Church will be part of a new and broad­er push to de­liv­er as­sis­tance di­rect­ly to the Cuban peo­ple.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, the regime has to make a choice,” Lewin said. “Step down or bet­ter pro­vide to­wards peo­ple.”

Lewin added that “if there was no regime,” the U.S. would pro­vide “bil­lions and bil­lions of dol­lars” in as­sis­tance, as well as in­vest­ment and de­vel­op­ment: “That’s what lies on the oth­er side of the regime for the Cuban peo­ple.”

The an­nounce­ment riled Cuban For­eign Min­is­ter Bruno Ro­dríguez.

“The U.S. gov­ern­ment is ex­ploit­ing what ap­pears to be a hu­man­i­tar­i­an ges­ture for op­por­tunis­tic and po­lit­i­cal­ly ma­nip­u­la­tive pur­pos­es,” he said in a state­ment. “As a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, Cu­ba does not op­pose as­sis­tance from gov­ern­ments or or­ga­ni­za­tions, pro­vid­ed it ben­e­fits the peo­ple and the needs of those af­fect­ed are not used for po­lit­i­cal gain un­der the guise of hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid.” —HA­VANA (AP)

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Sto­ry by AN­DREA RO­DRÍGUEZ and DÁNI­CA CO­TO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Dan­i­ca Co­to con­tributed from San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co.