Biden sanctions Cuban national police officials for their role in the crackdown on protesters
The U.S. on Friday issued sanctions against the Cuban National Revolutionary Police and its two top officials for their role in the violent crackdown of anti-government protesters in Cuba, a move that came ahead of a White House meeting between President Joe Biden and Cuban American activists.
“The Cuban Americans are hurting. They’re hurting because their loved ones are suffering,” President Biden said at the beginning of the meeting late afternoon. “And it’s quite frankly intolerable. So I want the Cuban Americans to know that we all around this table and myself included seeing your pain, we hear voices, we hear the cries of freedom coming from the island.”
Earlier, the Department of the Treasury used the Global Magnitsky act to blocklist the police agency, its director Oscar Alejandro Callejas Valcarce and its deputy, Eddy Manuel Sierra Arias.
“The Treasury Department will continue to designate and call out by name those who facilitate the Cuban regime’s involvement in serious human rights abuse,” said director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control Andrea M. Jacki. “Today’s action serves to hold further accountable those responsible for suppressing the Cuban people’s calls for freedom and respect for human rights.”
Persons and organizations added to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals, And Blocked Person list have their assets frozen and can’t travel to the U.S.
President Biden said more sanctions were coming unless “drastic changes” took place in Cuba. He said his administration was pursuing “every available option to provide internet access and help the Cubans bypass the censorship imposed” by Cuban authorities.
He also said the U.S. was expanding assistance to political prisoners dissidents and that he asked State Department and Treasury to provide within months recommendations on “how to maximize the flow on remittances to the Cuban people without the Cuban military taking in their cut.”
Without further details, the president said the administration was working to increase U.S. staffing at the embassy in Havana “while prioritizing the safety” of U.S. personnel.
As he emerged from the White House after the meeting to board Marine One, Biden did not offer a clear response to a reporter’s question about whether he planned to reopen travel to Cuba. As he met with the activists, a group of Cuban American protesters gathered outside the White House — as they have for the past three weeks — to call for a more hard-line response from the administration.
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