The US on Thursday imposed sanctions on Cuba’s defense minister and a special forces unit for repressing peaceful protests, a step US President Joe Biden warned is “just the beginning” of punitive measures against Havana.
The US Department of the Treasury said its Office of Foreign Assets Control froze the assets of Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba Alvaro Lopez Miera and the Special National Brigade (SNB), a division of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior, in relation to human rights abuses committed during a crackdown on protests earlier this month.
“This is just the beginning — the United States will continue to sanction individuals responsible for oppression of the Cuban people,” Biden said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters
The sanctions were imposed under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which allows a US president to take action against human rights abuses and corruption.
Biden said his administration targeted Lopez Miera and the SNB — a special forces unit nicknamed the “Black Berets” — because they were “driving the crackdown” against protesters who took to the streets by the thousands in rare public demonstrations against the communist government.
Biden also condemned what he called “the mass detentions and sham trials” used to imprison and silence outspoken Cubans. Cuba pushed back swiftly, calling the sanctions “slanderous” and saying the US should focus more on repression and police brutality on its own soil.
“I reject unfounded and slanderous sanctions by the US government” against the Cubans targeted, Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez wrote on Twitter.
The sanctions freeze all of Lopez Miera’s and SNB’s assets and interests in the US, as well as prohibit any US citizen, resident or entity from engaging with them financially.
“Treasury will continue to enforce its Cuba-related sanctions, including those imposed today, to support the people of Cuba in their quest for democracy and relief from the Cuban regime,” US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said.
On Sunday and Monday last week, thousands of Cubans took to the streets in 40 cities shouting: “Freedom,” “Down with the dictatorship” and “We’re hungry.”
One person has died and more than 100 have been arrested since the protests broke out over the worst economic crisis in decades.
According to the Treasury Department, Cuba’s defense ministry and security services attacked people and “arrested or disappeared over 100 protesters in an attempt to suppress these protests.”
The Cuban government has blamed the protests on what it said were “counter-revolutionaries” backed by the US to exploit the economic hardship caused by the decades-old US embargo.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador also blamed the US embargo for fomenting the biggest unrest in Cuba in decades, as the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said it would send two navy ships loaded with food and medical supplies to Cuba.
The ships would leave the port of Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow, taking syringes, oxygen tanks and masks along with powdered milk, cans of tuna, beans, flour, cooking oil and gasoline.
The shipments exemplify Mexico’s policy of “international solidarity,” and it will keep offering humanitarian aid to help Latin American and Caribbean countries tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, the ministry said in a statement.
The loading of the cargo began early on Thursday, said Marisa Lopez, a spokeswoman for the office of the mayor of Veracruz.
Latin American governments have split along ideological lines over the protests in Cuba.
Mexico, run by leftist Lopez Obrador, has sided with Cuba, while Chile and Peru have urged the Cuban government to allow pro-democracy protests.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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