State Division head Rubio mentioned he had sanctioned a number of senior officers and their ‘cronies’ for his or her ‘brutality towards the Cuban individuals’.
The US State Division has imposed sanctions on senior Cuban officers, together with President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio introduced as he marked the fourth anniversary of a brutal crackdown on historic antigovernment protests.
In a publish on X, Rubio mentioned the State Division can be “proscribing visas for Cuban regime figureheads”, together with President Diaz-Canel, Defence Minister Alvaro Lopez Miera, Inside Minister Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas, and their “cronies” for his or her “position within the Cuban regime’s brutality towards the Cuban individuals”.
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, additionally introduced that the State Division has added the Torre Okay lodge to its restricted checklist of entities to be able to “stop US {dollars} from funding the Cuban regime’s repression”.
The Cuban authorities has promoted the luxurious high-rise Torre Okay in central Havana as an emblem of modernisation. However the authorities has confronted criticism for its giant funding in luxurious resorts amid a extreme financial disaster within the nominally socialist one-party state.
“Whereas the Cuban individuals undergo shortages of meals, water, drugs, and electrical energy, the regime lavishes cash on its insiders,” Rubio mentioned.
Ten different “regime-linked properties” have been additionally added to the State Division’s Record of Prohibited Lodging, it mentioned in an announcement.
The assertion mentioned the sanctions have been being enacted in “solidarity with the Cuban individuals and the island’s political prisoners”, citing the Cuban authorities’s brutal crackdown on the July 2021 demonstrations – the biggest for the reason that Cuban revolution within the Nineteen Fifties.
The police crackdown resulted in a single loss of life and dozens of wounded protesters.
“4 years in the past, hundreds of Cubans peacefully took to the streets to demand a future free from tyranny. The Cuban regime responded with violence and repression, unjustly detaining hundreds, together with over 700 who’re nonetheless imprisoned and subjected to torture or abuse,” the State Division mentioned.
Rubio additionally accused Cuba of torturing pro-democracy activist Jose Daniel Ferrer, whose bail was revoked as he was taken into custody alongside fellow dissident Felix Navarro in April.
“The US calls for speedy proof of life and the discharge of all political prisoners,” Rubio mentioned.
Cuban Overseas Minister Bruno Rodriguez slammed the most recent measures as a part of a “ruthless financial struggle” being waged by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
“The USA is able to imposing migratory sanctions towards revolutionary leaders and sustaining a protracted and ruthless financial struggle towards Cuba, however it lacks the power to interrupt the need of those individuals or their leaders,” he mentioned on X.
In January, then-US President Joe Biden had eliminated Cuba from the blacklist of nations sponsoring terrorism.
However Trump returned the nation to the blacklist instantly after returning to the White Home as he resumed his “most strain” marketing campaign towards Cuba that typified his international coverage throughout his first time period.