Last October 21, the pilot of a Cuban airliner noticed a US-registered light aircraft releasing a white or greyish mist. Seven weeks later, an insect plague of plant-damaging thrips, previously unknown in Cuba, was discovered in a state farm. The Cuban government believes, after investigation, that Cuba has been the target of a biological attack by the US.
According to a recently released report, the US-registered fumigation airplane flew over the Giron air corridor in Cuba's west. The plane, according to the scheduled flights, radar control information and records of ground control communication with airplanes, was operated by the US State Department and was on a flight from Patrick US Air Force base in Florida.
This model of plane is used by the State Department against drug trafficking; it has the ability to drop aerosols, liquid particles or solid particles on drug crops.
The Cuban Airlines pilot had immediately reported the incident to Cuban flight control, which contacted the US aircraft, asking if it had a technical problem. The US pilot's recorded response was negative.
A week after the December 18 appearance of the thrips infestation on potato plantations at the Lenin horticultural state farm in Matanzas, the Cuban Foreign Affairs Ministry complained to the US interests section in Havana and asked for a clarification.
The reply, on February 12, said the US pilot had seen the Cuban airliner flying below and, "following caution and safety procedures", used his plane's smoke generator to indicate his location, adding that no fluid was released from the aircraft. The Cuban pilot, previously a fumigation plane pilot, assured the investigation that the release was not smoke.
The Central Quarantine Laboratory of the Cuban National Pest Control Centre identified the insects found in Matanzas province as Thrips Palmi Karay, exotic to Cuban territory. Known as thrips, the Thysanoptera insect order are small winged insects which thrive in tropical and temperate regions. There are about 5000 identified species.
Thrips are economically significant because some transmit plant viruses — the Thrips Palmi, indigenous to Asia and present in Haiti, Dominican Republic and Jamaica to Cuba's east, spreads plant virus TSWV. Thrips' feeding also has a drastic affect on agricultural crops, reducing seed production, disfiguring leaves and fruit, damaging leaves and, in warm areas, causing plant galls and leaf rolls.
The pest control centre estimated that the discovery of the plague coincided with three to four generational cycles of the insect from October. The Federation of American Scientists' February 1996 Report of the subgroup for investigation of claims of use or escape of agents which constitute biological or toxin weapons includes thrips among the invertebrates relevant to the convention on biological weapons.
US research has indicated that the insect, mainly in its larval stage, can be dropped effectively from the height of the fumigation plane. According to the investigation, their damaging effect on agricultural crops and resistance to pesticides makes thrips an ideal biological agent.
Despite measures by the Cuban government to control the insects, including chemical control with expensive pesticides, the plague has spread. From the primary infection site, the insects spread first to fields close to Máximo Gómez and Bolondrón villages a couple of kilometres away. In the first half of January, foci of the same insect were spotted in municipalities south of Havana province, bordering Matanzas, striking corn, beans, pumpkin, cucumber and other crops.
At the end of March, the Cuban government, complying with international regulations, informed the UN secretary general and Centre on Disarmament, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, to which Cuba applied for technical and financial assistance to fight the pest.
At present, the insect is spread throughout Matanzas and La Habana provinces, in two municipalities of Cienfuegos province, in some municipalities of Pinar del Rio province and on the Isle of Youth.
The investigation concluded that the appearance of the Thrips Palmi in Matanzas province was related to the unknown substance dropped by the US State Department's aircraft. This biological aggression continues the US policy of war on socialist Cuba, carried out primarily through its recently tightened, 37-year economic blockade.