Washington: In response to historic protests in Cuba, the Biden administration sanctioned a key Cuban official and a government special forces unit known as the Boinas Negras for human rights abuses. President Joe Biden said in a statement that Thursday’s actions were ‘just the beginning–the United States will continue to sanction individuals who oppress the Cuban people’.
‘I condemn unambiguously the mass detentions and sham trials that are unjustly sending to prison those who dared to speak out in an effort to intimidate and threaten the Cuban people. To hold them accountable for their actions, my Administration has imposed new sanctions targeting elements of the Cuban regime responsible for this crackdown the head of the Cuban military and the division of the Cuban Ministry of Interior driving it’, he said.
In response to criticism from Cuban-American groups and some members of Congress that the administration had not taken a tough enough stance against the Cuban regime, the administration has implemented sanctions for the first time. The Treasury Department declared in a press release that it was appointing Alvaro Lopez Miera, who is in charge of Cuba’s Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, as well as the National Special Brigade of the Ministry of the Interior known locally as the Boinas Negras or the ‘black berets’ in connection with the repression of peaceful, pro-democratic protests in Cuba that began on July 11.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Cubans are protesting for fundamental and universal rights. ‘Treasury will continue to enforce its Cuba-related sanctions, including those imposed today, to support the people of Cuba in their quest for democracy and relief from the Cuban regime’. Cuba’s Boinas Negras are an elite special forces unit that has been deployed by the government in response to widespread anti-government demonstrations on the communist island. Lopez Miera and the unit were sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, a law that allows for sanctions against those involved in significant human rights abuses or corruption.
Bruno Rodrguez Parrilla, Cuba’s foreign minister, responded angrily to the announcement on Twitter. ‘I reject the unfounded and slanderous accusations by the US government against General Alvaro Lopez Miera and the National Special Brigade. They should apply to themselves the Global Magnitsky Act for the daily acts of repression and police brutality which cost 1,022 lives in 2020’, Parrilla wrote. The administration indicated Wednesday that sanctions would be forthcoming. ‘We are reviewing our remittance policy to determine how we can maximize support to the Cuban people,’ Biden said, referring to an effort announced earlier this week to review a policy on remittances in the wake of historic protests on the island.
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Moreover, he said that the administration is ‘committed to strengthening our embassy in Havana in order to offer consular services to Cubans and to engage with Cuba’s civil society, while ensuring the safety of U.S. diplomats in Cuba’. In late 2016, US diplomatic personnel in Cuba began to experience unexplained symptoms, such as dizziness and headaches, sometimes accompanied by a ‘piercing directional noise’. The state department dramatically cut the number of staff at the diplomatic post.
Earlier this month, protests erupted across Cuba as Cubans complained about a lack of food and medicine amid a severe economic crisis exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and United States sanctions. Activists claim hundreds of demonstrators were detained during the days of unrest.
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