Us Interests Office

Set up in 1977 during a brief thaw in Cuban-American relations under President Jimmy Carter, the US Interests Office remains a huge source of controversy between the two countries, with the Cubans accusing its US neighbor of sponsoring all kinds of political dissent across the island from behind its heavily guarded doors. Surrounded by billboards displaying hysterical graffiti that liken George W Bush to Adolf Hitler, the building is the site of some of the worst tit-for-tat finger wagging on the island. Facing the office on the Malecón is the Plaza Tribuna Anti-Imperialista, built during the Elián González affair to host major in-your-face protests (earning it the local nickname ‘Protestódromo’). Seventy-three somber flags currently fly here in honor of the 73 Cubans killed in a 1976 plane bomb in the Bahamas. The main perpetrator, Luís Posada Carriles, is currently residing in the US.