Security in Cuba

The dividing lines between state security, national (military) defense, and criminal matters have long been blurred in Cuba. The Ministry of the Interior oversees state security, including the Border Guard, regular police forces, and agencies concerned with political dissent. The Cuban police force is nationally organized into principal, municipal, and barrio(neighbourhood) divisions. In addition, there are special security forces assigned to diplomats and tourist areas. Several professional firms also provide security for hotels and other businesses.

Human rights activists and other dissenters are often arrested arbitrarily. Groups of party loyalists, who are organized into so-called Rapid Response Brigades, occasionally intimidate, beat, or publicly humiliate dissenters.

Cuba has one of the better-trained and better-equipped military forces in the West Indies, though many of its troops are assigned to the Youth Labour Army, which assists with the sugarcane harvest and other agricultural work during much of the year. Two years of military service are obligatory for men between the ages of 16 and 50 but voluntary for women. Among Cuba’s paramilitary organizations are the local militias (Milicias de Tropas Territoriales), consisting of about one million people.

After Cuba repelled the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, it developed strong ties with the Soviet Union, which provided technical and financial support and most of Cuba’s military equipment, including ships, dozens of fighter jets, helicopters, and hundreds of tanks.

The Soviets also constructed missile bases in Cuba, which precipitated the Cuban missile crisisof 1962; a few thousand Soviet and, later, Russian troops remained in Cuba until the late 1990s.

For its part, Cuba sent large numbers of troops abroad to support Marxist revolutionary groups and governments. During the 1980s it fielded as many as 50,000 troops in Angola and 15,000 in Ethiopia. The Cuban government also sent smaller numbers of troops, advisers, and technicians to such African countries as Mozambique, Algeria, and Libya and to the small Caribbean country of Grenada, where they briefly resisted a U.S. invasion in 1983. The Russian government closed its espionage base at Lourdes, Cuba, in 2001.

Shipments of cocaine and heroin from South America to the United States and Europe are sometimes intercepted by the Border Guard, which often coordinates antinarcotics operations with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Security in Cuba.

Cuba is not a major narcotics destination, and the island has had fewer drug-related problems than The Bahamas. The U.S. Navy has maintained its base at Guantánamo Bay since the early 20th century despite protests from the Cuban government. The United States considers the base a strategic asset to its forces in the Caribbean; the base has also served as a holding and processing area for Haitian, Dominican, and Cuban refugees and more recently has been used by the United States to house prisoners from Afghanistan. Britannica