US removes Cuba from state sponsors of terror list

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden is removing the US designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, the White House said Tuesday, in a deal that will see imprisoned protesters released in the communist country.

The move will likely be overturned after the return to office next week of Republican Donald Trump, who reinstated the designation in the last few days of his first term of office in 2021.

“An assessment has been completed, and we do not have information that supports Cuba’s designation as being a state sponsor of terrorism,” a senior adminstration official told reporters.

It was not clear how many prisoners were involved but the official said the release would take place “in relatively short order” and that the total freed would be “significant.”

He said the Catholic Church was “significantly advancing” an agreement with Cuba to allow for the humanitarian release of “political prisoners in Cuba and those who have been detained unjustly.”

Cuba has been dealing with over six decades of US sanctions, which the Cuban government blames for the island nation’s worst economic crisis, with shortages of fuel, food, medicines and electricity.

Blackouts and soaring food prices led to unprecedented anti-government protests around three years ago, with hundreds of people arrested and some given long prison terms, according to rights groups.

Thousands of Cubans took to the streets in July 2021, shouting, “We are hungry” and “Freedom!” in what was then a rare challenge to the government.

One person was killed and dozens were injured in the protests, which Cuba’s government accused Washington of orchestrating.

‘Genocidal’

Analysts say the Covid-19 pandemic, which tanked tourism, and economic mismanagement by the government have contributed greatly to the state of the economy.

But Cuba’s president Miguel Diaz-Canel has described US sanctions as “genocidal” and said his country was prepared for “more difficult circumstances” after Trump’s election.

Cuba was also ready for “dialogue” with the new administration, Diaz-Canel added, speaking weeks after Trump was reelected.

The 78-year-old Republican’s first presidential term from 2017 to 2021 saw a tightening of sanctions that have been in place against Cuba since 1962.

The incoming president’s allies immediately criticised Biden over Tuesday’s terror list announcement, with Ted Cruz, a Cuban-American member of the US senate’s foreign relations committee, calling it a “rank appeasement of the Cuban regime.”

“They push these policies both because they believe in them and to undermine the incoming Trump administration and Republicans in Congress,” Cruz said in a statement.

“These moves do incredible damage to American national security and send a message to our adversaries that they can rely on outgoing Democrat administrations – and wait out pressure from Republican administrations – to continue engaging in terrorism and other aggression against Americans.”

Trump has nominated senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American highly critical of communism and the left at large, to serve as his secretary of state.

A White House statement said Biden would also be waiving part of the so-called Libertad Act underpinning the US embargo of Cuba, so that nationals with claims to confiscated property in Cuba will no longer be able to file suit in American courts against persons that may be “trafficking” in that property.

It added that Biden is also rescinding a Trump-era policy called “National Security Presidential Memorandum 5” – ending restrictions on financial transactions with certain Cuban entities.