An unexpected decision. United States President Joe Biden is removing Cuba from the blacklist of states supporting terrorism, a senior American official said on Tuesday, January 14. The objective: “encourage” discussions carried out under the aegis of the Catholic Church for the release of a “important name of political prisoners» on the island, the official said. A profitable choice, since in the process, the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, announced that he would “progressively” release 553 prisoners following negotiations with the Vatican.
This surprise announcement by the outgoing president, made official in a memorandum published by the White House, is a “gesture of goodwill”, he continued, explaining that he hoped for releases before the swearing in on Monday January 20 of Republican Donald Trump, whose party is historically very hostile to the Cuban communist authorities. While the Cuban Foreign Ministry welcomed a U.S. move in the right direction, President Díaz-Canel said the easing of sanctions risked being too little and too late, adding that future U.S. administrations could reverse course. their decision.
A few days before ceding power to Joe Biden in January 2021, the former and now future Republican president made the exact opposite decision, that of placing Cuba on this list which also includes North Korea, Iran and Syria . And it is indeed entirely possible that Donald Trump will put Cuba back on this list as soon as he comes to power.
Its future head of diplomacy, Republican senator from Florida Marco Rubio, built his entire political career relying on the anti-Castro Cuban diaspora. His own parents left Cuba for the United States in 1956, three years before Fidel Castro came to power.
“Differed opinion”
Joe Biden announced this Tuesday two other unilateral measures intended to support ongoing negotiations under the aegis of the Catholic Church, and which relate in particular to people imprisoned after the anti-government demonstrations of July 2021. The Democratic president suspends a on the other hand the possibility of filing a complaint before American courts for expropriations in Cuba, and on the other hand lifts certain financial restrictions.
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz immediately denounced the decision “unacceptable” to remove Cuba from the list of states supporting terrorism. He accused Joe Biden of seeking to «know» the work of the future government of Donald Trump and the Republican-majority Congress.
Asked about tying the hands of the Republican president-elect in this way, six days before he takes the oath, the senior official already cited assured that there was “a widely shared opinion, in both parties (Democratic and Republican, editor’s note), that no one should be detained without reason in Cuba.”
According to official figures, some 500 people were sentenced to sentences of up to 25 years in prison for their participation in the demonstrations of July 11 and 12, 2021, the largest since the advent of the Castro revolution in 1959. NGOs and the United States Embassy in Cuba account for a total of a thousand “political prisoners” on the island. The Cuban government denies the existence of these prisoners and accuses the opponents of being “mercenaries” in the pay of Washington.
Source: www.liberation.fr
