Photos of Cuban base used by China to spy on US and testimony from neighbors: “Everything is known here”

On the outskirts of a sleepy Cuban town unconscious, a bumpy road that gets lost in the forest ends at a rusty barbed wire fence. A sign warns: “Do not send. Military zone.”.

What lies beyond remains largely a mystery, though the US government has long suspected it China has launched an intelligence-gathering operation On the site of the Soviet era.

A reporter Reuters He traveled to Bejugal this week, gaining unusual access to the area around the site, which remains a black box even to locals but has come into the light after the US government raised concerns. Beijing uses the island as a spy base.

He The Wall Street Journal It quoted US officials as saying last week A new effort by China’s security services is underway in CubaAt a time when relations between Beijing and Washington are at their lowest level in decades.

Reuters noticed Giant satellite dishes A ridge above the city, above a line of royal trees. A large covered dome of rusty white metal—the kind that housed the antenna—loomed over the dark forest, its sides decorated with cryptic black triangles, some inverted. Reporters were photographed by unidentified men on motorcycles in plain clothes.

America believes it is a lesser-known site. Only 187 miles from Key West, Floridais used Intercept electronic communications from WashingtonAccording to a November 2022 Federal Communications Commission filing.

“(The Chinese Communist Party) maintains a physical presence at a Soviet-era intelligence facility in Bejugal, which appears to be an intelligence-gathering activity,” the FCC document says, citing the commission’s 2018 report. US-China Economic and Security Review.

Those concerns were cited in part as reasons for denying an application to connect Cuba to the United States through the ARCOS-1 undersea telecommunications cable, according to a document prepared by a commission that includes members of the Department of Homeland Security. America and the Judiciary.

China on Monday denied using Cuba as a spy base. Havana did not respond Reuters Questions about the Bejugal military base, however, have dismissed the allegations as a contrived argument by Washington to justify a 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’s National Security Council did not respond to questions Reuters As to whether Pejugal hosted the facility or whether he continued to care about the site.

In an undulating countryside surrounded by various palm, sugar cane and banana plantations, many Cubans around Bejugal still live as they did decades ago, working the farms and traveling by bike or horse.

Arnoldo Perez, a 61-year-old farmer, has spent his life in Bejugal. Reuters That I don’t know who could be behind it Broad green and white saucer-shaped antennae are tucked into the ridges above the city.

“I know it has to do with the militaryAs Perez rode his horse and cart into town, he pointed toward the ridge. “But I am a countryman. I mind my own business”.

The farming town of Bejugal 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 weapons in the midst of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

There is no one you spoke to Reuters Have seen or heard hints of Chinese involvement in Bejucal in recent yearsAlthough At one point, many believed Russia had access to the site.

The deterioration in US-Russia relations over the Ukraine invasion has fueled speculation that President Vladimir Putin may decide to reopen a Soviet-era spy base in Lourdes. 2000s.

said Onelvis Despine, a 36-year-old farm worker who lives on the outskirts of the site. Reuters On Monday, he had yet to hear reports that China planned to spy on Cuba.

But if they were true, he said, he would soon find out.

“There are rumoursHe said with a smile as he swept the lawn with his scythe. “Everyone here knows everything“, he added.

(With information from Reuters)

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