United States announced sanctions against Cuban dictatorship for crackdown on massive July 11 protests

The government of United States President Joe Biden on Thursday announced sanctions against Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) Minister Álvaro López-Miera and an elite military unit popularly known as the “Wasps” black “or” berets. black ” for his role in suppressing anti-government protests on July 11.

This marks the first concrete steps of the Biden administration to put pressure on the Cuban dictatorship., as Washington faces calls from US lawmakers and the Cuban-American community to show greater support for the protesters.

The speed with which the government crafted the new sanctions indicates that Biden is unlikely to soften the US approach to Cuba. shortly after his predecessor, Donald Trump, called off a historic Obama-era detente with Havana.

Thousands of Cubans marched a week ago to protest an economic crisis that has resulted in commodity shortages and power outages.. They are also protesting against the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and restrictions on civil liberties. Hundreds of activists have been arrested.

Biden had vowed during his campaign to overturn some of Trump’s policies toward Cuba, but Thursday’s announcement suggests little appetite to move closer to the Communist-ruled island again.

At the same time, the Biden administration continues to seek ways to alleviate the plight of the Cuban people.

The White House said Tuesday that Biden would form a task force to analyze the issue of remittances to Cuba following protests on the island. The goal is to determine how Cuban Americans can send money to families on the island while keeping funds out of the reach of the Cuban dictatorship.

Trump had placed strict restrictions on the flow of remittances, estimated at several billion dollars per year.

The United States is also working with the private sector and Congress to find ways to make the Internet more accessible to the Cuban people, State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Tuesday.

Sanctions were applied on the basis of the global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Law (Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act or Magnitsky Act), a standard with which American justice can accuse foreign citizens of corruption and human rights violations.

Congress approved it in 2012 and originally targeted Russian regime officials who were under investigation for the crime of lawyer Sergei Magnistsky in 2009, an activist who had denounced government corruption. Vladimir Poutine.

Four years later, The United States has started to enforce this law around the world, a standard that allows it to sanction governments that violate human rights., freeze assets in different parts of the world and ban entry into the United States.

On the other hand, the human rights group in exile Cubalex, who has created a list of detainees that he updates daily, reports that more than 500 Cubans arrested during protests against Castro’s dictatorship or after. Several of these detainees are missing, according to their relatives.

(With information from Reuters)

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