US sanctions Cuban military officials for cracking down on protests

WASHINGTON – The United States has imposed sanctions on the Cuban defense minister and the communist nation’s special forces brigade for cracking down on the peaceful protests that erupted on the island last week.

The sanctions mark the first steps the Biden administration has taken to pressure the Cuban government as Washington faces calls to show greater support for protesters.

President Joe Biden has warned the Cuban government that there are more to come.

“This is only the beginning – the United States will continue to sanction those responsible for the oppression of the Cuban people,” the president said in a statement on Thursday. Previously, Biden had said the United States was “firmly on the side of the Cuban people as they asserted their universal rights.”

The Treasury Department singled out Cuban Defense Minister Alvaro Lopez Miera for having “played an essential role in the repression of the ongoing protests in Cuba”.

Sanctions ban payments from entities in the United States to Lopez Miera and special forces, as well as payments from Cuban entities to the United States

State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday that the United States is working with the private sector and Congress to seek ways to make the Internet accessible to the Cuban people. Price has already called on the Cuban government to restore full internet and telecommunications.

“The actions of the Cuban security forces and the violent crowds mobilized by the first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, Miguel Diaz-Canel, expose the regime’s fear of its own people and its refusal to meet their basic needs and aspirations” , wrote Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement. .

“We support all Cubans seeking a government that respects the human rights and dignity of the Cuban people,” he added.

More than a week ago, thousands of protesters took to the streets amid frustrations over a crippled economy hit by food and electricity shortages.

The rare protests, the largest the communist country has seen since the 1990s, come as the government struggles to contain the coronavirus pandemic, pushing the island’s fragile health system to the brink.

Cuban President Diaz-Canel Bermudez said his regime was “desperate” to quell the protests, according to a Washington Post report. “We will fight in the streets,” he said, adding that the United States is partly responsible for the widespread discontent in Cuba.

A day later, he appeared alongside members of his government and accused US trade sanctions of hampering Cuba’s growth.

Reacting to the Cuban president’s comments, Blinken told reporters last week that the United States was not to blame for the long list of problems plaguing Havana.

Blinken said Cubans were “tired of the mismanagement of the Cuban economy, tired of the lack of adequate food and, of course, of an adequate response to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“This is what we hear and see in Cuba, and it is a reflection of the Cuban people, not the United States or any other outside actor,” Blinken said.