I am starting to see more anti cuban known news outlets posting that Ecuador was not the first to violate an Embassy but Cuba. Can I disregard this as fake news?
The tweet in english is the following:
On February 21, 1981, Cuban special troops forcibly took over the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest dissidents seeking asylum. For those who say there is no precedent.
I can say this is true (that there is a precedent)
On the other hand.
Sorry, Batista beat him first…
On Monday, October 29, the police, personally led by their Chief, Brigadier Gen. Rafael SALAS Cañizares, attacked the Haitian Embassy residence, exchange gunfire with those inside, and killed ten Cuban civilians who had sought refuge there.
https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/embassy/R7-260-10-31-1956.pdf
Reading further into this
'There wore no other survivors among the civilians other than the embassy cook
They entered during lunch
Wow, this was a massive cock-up
This really shows the difference between the two regimes, one has 1 death, another has 10(+).
If you are to believe the CIA, yes.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp83b00225r000100050001-5 (Page 18)
Although… https://cubaarchive.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Owen-Delgado-Case-Profile-ENGLISH.pdf
A week later, on February 21, 1981, the Ambassador left the premises to go get food and a Cuban Special Forces team stormed the embassy. Ecuador stated that Cuba did not have authorization, but Cuba insisted the operation had been approved and an official who later defected from Cuban Intelligence has confirmed this.
2 things
So 14 people decided to go to an Ecuadorian embassy (4 minors, 3 woman), get it held up, at gun point, and unarmed themselves to ask for refugee status…
On Feb 21, Cuba burst with special forces (understandable, considering guns involved)…
Another thing was that Delgado, the only casualty and death, who was one of the minors, was left with wounds beaten up after that incident… and he died, after a coma… I assumed he must’ve resisted, then?
So 14 people
No, 29[1], 14 of them being family members of Juan Owen Delgado.
get it held up, at gun point, and unarmed themselves to ask for refugee status…
(CIA) They storm on the 13th, and hold 4 people hostage, then on the 19th they release the hostages and disarm themselves.
Another thing was that Delgado, the only casualty and death, who was one of the minors, was left with wounds beaten up after that incident… and he died, after a coma… I assumed he must’ve resisted, then?
I don’t know. Searching for his name doesn’t reveal any other sources than CubaArchive. And the CIA pdf doesn’t (as far as I skimmed) seem to have any info on him (not that I would expect it to).
I think searching in Spanish may be more fruitful.
19 men, 4 women, 6 children; see Feb 13—page 18—in CIA PDF ↩︎
Sorry, Eddie, I only skimmed the Cuba archive one (it’s gusano?) but I can see yer point… I’ve reread the CIA’s sources…
I don’t know about this specific case, but in April 1980 some people killed an embassy guard and broke into the Peruvian embassy and Cuba let them leave.
On the other hand.
The precedent was already set by the previous Cuban gov’t (the cringe one)…
