For the past few years, dozens of American diplomats have been suffering from strange symptoms: hearing problems, headaches, fogging. Recorded for the first time in Cuba, the phenomenon then arrived in Berlin, Vienna and most recently in Hanoi. The Americans point the finger at Russia: which denies it. Like in the days of the Cold War
LONDON – A specter roams the world, but unlike the one Marx dreamed of, no one knows for sure what lies behind it. It has a name: Havana syndrome. And symptoms: headache, fatigue, nausea, vision, hearing and balance problems, sometimes memory loss. The fear is that it is the latest secret weapon in the espionage wars and that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is maneuvering it.
The latest case is yesterday: the trip to Hanoi that should have concluded the tour in the Far East of the American Vice President Kamala Harris has been postponed, after two cases of the mysterious malaise that emerged among officials of the United States embassy in the capital of Vietnam. An embassy employee had to be evacuated to Washington for more thorough treatment.
The suspicions of Western intelligence are directed towards Moscow, but as the name of the disease suggests, the first cases came out in Cuba. In August 2017, news began to circulate that American diplomats stationed on the Caribbean island had been suffering for about a year from unusual and unexplained ailments.
In all, 26 US citizens serving in Cuba were affected by the syndrome, which develops suddenly: the victim begins to hear strange noises as if they came from a specific direction, some describe it as a vibration, others as the hum listen to while driving with the car windows down. The phenomenon, which lasted from 20 seconds to 30 minutes, always occurred when diplomats were at home or in a hotel.
Subsequent medical studies in America found brain damage in the victims comparable to that suffered by those exposed to the shock wave of an explosion, but without being able to determine the precise causes. One hypothesis is that it is high-frequency electromagnetic waves or other forms of radio frequency energy, “fired” at the target of the attack.
Donald Trump openly accused Cuba of being responsible, minimizing the staff of the American embassy in Havana: an accusation firmly rejected by the Cuban government, which in turn has conducted studies on the matter without providing an explanation. Subsequently, other cases of the “Havana syndrome”, as it had now been renamed, occurred elsewhere in the world against American diplomats or officials, including, according to rumors, about fifty CIA agents.
