After decades of tension between the United States and Cuba, the Obama Administration’s actions of reconciliation seemed to be the beginning of a positive relationship with Cuba. Making history in 2016, President Obama was the first leader of the United States to visit Cuba in decades, and the president also loosened travelling restrictions, signaling a growing trust between the two countries. However, the honeymoon phase seemed to come to an end earlier this year with the issue of possible “health attacks” presenting itself.

In late 2016, sixteen United States ambassadors residing in Havana, the capital of Cuba, fell ill. Many diplomats even ended their tours early and returned to the United States because of these illnesses. With all of the ill ambassadors suffering from headaches, dizziness, and hearing-loss, a pattern presented itself months after the illnesses began. Problems like hearing loss and dementia are definitely something to watch out for in these trying times. Alarmed, the Trump Administration contacted the University of Miami. Six patients were flown from Havana to the University’s hospital for evaluation and treatment, and in August of this year, a specialist from the university was sent to Havana to assess other ambassadors staying at the American Embassy as many others were expected to have been affected by these strange illnesses. If one is concerned about a brain cyst being cancerous, the medical experts assure that most of them aren’t.

The pattern of symptoms and the fact that the illness was only seen in American ambassadors at the time caused a tremendous concern in Washington and the thought of Cuban attack on Americans was very apparent in the minds of officials. There has been a long history of American ambassadors being harassed by the Cuban government. Cuban agents use to tailgate diplomat’s cars while driving to keep them from being able to change lanes. Sometimes American diplomats would return to their residences in Cuba to find that all of their pictures of their kids were erased off their computers or that all their books had been turned around on the shelves. While these actions were meant to show the ambassadors that they had no privacy and were very annoying, Cuban agents never committed physical attacks.  

Upon evaluation, the illnesses appeared to be caused by some sort of sonic wave machine. The State Department decided that affected diplomats were either deliberately attacked or accidentally exposed to this machine which was most likely placed in or near their residences. One theory is that this was an unauthorized stunt by a member of the Cuban government to end reconciliation efforts, while another, and the most likely theory, is that the wave machine was most likely a new form of eavesdropping technology that glitched. Also, since the original reports of American ambassadors falling ill, at least two Canadian ambassadors have reported falling will with the same symptoms. Cuba and Canada have very good relations with one another, so it is unlikely that the Cuban government would be attacking their ambassadors, giving more grip to the idea that this was not a planned attack, but more of a mistake.

As of right now, the Cuban government is not being blamed for the attack. The Cuban government learned of “health attacks” in February, and claimed that it would not allow for attacks against diplomats. However, two Cuban diplomats were expelled from Washington for the country’s failure to make American diplomats’ safety a priority. The Cuban government does not agree with this expulsion, but they promised to cooperate with the United States to get to the bottom of this mystery.