Granma presents to its readers a summary, in chronological order, of the US aggressions against Cuba since June 16, 2017
June 16, 2017: Main changes announced by Trump regarding his policy towards the Cuban nation
– Intensification of restrictions on Americans travel to Cuba by limiting the categories allowed to visit Cuba with a general license without requiring a specific permit from the Department of the Treasury. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) confirmed that the president instructed the end of the people to people individual trips, which allowed Americans to travel to Cuba on their own without needing an organization´s sponsorship.
– To make official reviews to travelers to determine if they remained within the framework of the permit granted was also ordered. The measure involves the risk of being sanctioned for those interested in knowing Cuba.
– The changes seek to prevent businesses of US companies with those linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), intelligence and security services, which are public properties, produce goods and services of high added value, while their profits help the improvement of the life quality of the Cuban people.
– It ordered the resurgence of the blockade as established in the Helms-Burton Act of 1996.
– The United States will oppose any international initiative that condemns that policy of aggression against Cuba. In the last vote at the United Nations, Washington abstained from the Cuban resolution to end the political and commercial economic blockade.
– It revokes the previous presidential instruction of Barak Obama of October 14, 2016. That one, although it contained interference elements, declared blockade as “an obsolete burden for the Cuban people and has been an impediment to US interests”.
Elements of the relationships that are maintained:
– The diplomatic relations reestablished in 2015 and the embassies in Washington and Havana are maintained.
– Nor will family trips and remittances sent by Cubans residing in that country be affected.
– The immigration agreement reached last January that eliminated the wet feet, dry feet policy and the Parole Program for Cuban Medical Professionals is maintained.
– So far, more than two dozen memoranda and agreements reached between the two countries in different areas, from environmental protection to security cooperation, are also in force.
– Trump’s political directive includes exceptions to allow the operation of regular flights and cruises.
– The Department of the Treasury clarifies that Trump’s announcements will not take effect until the new regulations are issued, which will take place “in the coming months”.
June 29, 2017: United States imposes fourth fine in 2017 to increase blockade against Cuba
– In 2017, the US Department of the Treasury imposed four fines on companies in its country and foreign ones for alleged violations of the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba. The last victim of that policy was the American insurance company American International Group (AIG), whose penalty was
$ 148,698. According to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the entity was involved in 29 apparent violations of the siege by providing insurance coverage for several shipments of goods to or from Cuba, or related to the island.
September 28, 2017: Cuba warns about politicization of alleged incidents with US diplomats in Havana
-In spite of the lack of evidence and the contrary opinions of the specialists, the hypothesis of an “acoustic attack” that included the use of sophisticated “sonic weapons” against the North American officials who worked in the Cuban capital is present in the American media since the story came to public light.
From that point on, several figures of the extreme anti-Cuban right of Miami have spoken in favor of the closure of the US embassy in Havana and the end of the links among several countries.
October 4, 2017: Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
-On September 29, 2017, the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, announced the decision to significantly reduce the diplomatic staff of his Embassy in Havana and withdraw all relatives, on the grounds that “Attacks” against the US government in Cuba have occurred, which have caused them health effects.
-On October 3, 2017, once again, the US government, in an unjustified action, decided that 15 officials of the Cuban embassy in Washington would leave the territory of the United States on the basis that they have reduced their diplomatic personnel in Havana and that the Cuban government would not have taken the necessary steps to prevent “attacks” against them.
November 9, 2017: Washington deepens backward relations with Cuba
The departments of State, Treasury and Commerce made public, on Wednesday, November 8, 2017, the application of the measures implemented by Trump on June 16 in Miami, where he met with the most reactionary wing of the Cuban-American community of Florida.
Among the new measures, a list from the Department of State was published with 179 Cuban organizations with which entities and citizens are prohibited of making direct financial transactions. The list includes the Ministries of the Armed Forces and Interior, the National Revolutionary Police, companies, corporations, the Mariel Special Development Zone, the Mariel and Havana Container terminals, dozens of hotels throughout Cuba, agencies of trips and shops.
November 18, 2017: USA imposes a new fine for alleged violation of the blockade against Cuba
The US Department of the Treasury announced that the financial firm American Express Company (Amex) will pay a fine of $ 204,277 for the alleged violation of the blockade imposed on Cuba over 55 years ago.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of that federal identity announced that this sanction is related to the possible responsibility of the Belgian company BCC Corporate S.A. (BCCC) in apparent violations of the Cuban Asset Control Regulations.
December 23, 2017: Washington moves its immigration office in Cuba to Mexico
-The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Friday 22 that will temporarily suspend operations at its embassy in Havana, due to the reduction of personnel, and the agency’s office in Mexico will assume these procedures.
January 11, 2018: The United States instructs its citizens to reconsider travel to Cuba, one of the safest countries in the world.
On Wednesday, January 10, the United States recommended that its citizens reconsider possible trips to Cuba.
The Department of State changed its old warning system to a ranking that places nations on four levels where the first only involves “taking normal precautions” and the fourth receives a “do not travel” warning.
Cuba, whose citizen security indicators are among the best in the region, was located at level three, with the suggestion of “reconsidering visits” because there are serious risks to their security and protection. Venezuela, Honduras, Haiti and Guatemala are among the Latin American countries with the same classification.
January 24, 2018: United States restarts failed policies towards Cuba
The United States created an Internet Task Force against Cuba, announced on January 23 by the Department of State, which opened the doors to return to a failed Cold War policy, which both countries tried to overcome, starting on 17 December, 2014.
The field chosen for the new aggression, the Internet, clearly demonstrated the true objectives of Washington when it claimed “free access” to the network of networks in the countries that oppose it, while in its territory a tracking and accumulation system of data on what their citizens do on the web is maintained.
Similarly, at the beginning of January the United States Congress advanced in a bill to keep the few restrictions that existed for international espionage.
Subversive projects against Cuba focused on new technologies:
-ZunZuneo: Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid), its objective was to launch a messaging network that could reach hundreds of thousands of Cubans using “non-controversial content”: football news, music, weather report and publicity. When they achieved their goal they would send messages of political content to incite Cubans to create mass calls and massive rallies to destabilize the country.
-Piramideo: Similar to ZunZuneo, this program was in charge of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), to which Radio and TV Martí are subject. It proposed the creation of a “friends” network, offering them the possibility of sending a massive SMS to the members of their “pyramid” for the value of a single message. The objective was to have a platform for subversion.
Conmmotion: It was a tool developed by the Open Technology Institute (OTI) of the New America Foundation, based in Washington, originally for military use, and consisting of the creation of independent wireless networks. Although its entry into operation in Cuba is unknown, millionaire funds were dedicated to that goal.
-Operation Surf: This program consisted of the entry of equipment and software for the installation of illegal antennas for Internet access.
February 20, 2018: Task force: The machinery of infamy
The United States announced the creation of the task force (operative force or task forces) against Cuba which means: regulating information, taking advantage of the new technologies progresses, controlling space and content flows to subvert the internal order in our country.
March 26, 2018: Washington releases funds for subversion in Cuba and border wall in Mexico
The budget approved by the United States Congress that allowed government financing until mid-2018 included $ 20 million for subversion against Cuba and $ 600 million for border security with Mexico, which President Donald Trump planned to use for building a wall. The amount of money used to promote a supposed regime change in Cuba that was camouflaged with the euphemism of “programs in favor of democracy” contrasted with the massive cuts applied to the Department of State and the foreign aid that the United States provides to countries in development.
Funds for subversion had been cut by Trump in fiscal year 2017, although the real figure dedicated to attacks against Cuba is much higher and comes from sources other than those of Congress.
March 30, 2018: The United States once again changes the process of immigrant visas for Cubans
The United States will begin processing immigrant visas for Cubans through its embassy in Georgetown, Guyana. Due to unilateral measures by Washington, the US consular section in Havana is virtually paralyzed and has only offered emergency services since September 2017.
The excuse to drastically cut the staff of the Embassy was related to alleged “acoustic attacks” against US diplomats in Cuba, on which there is no evidence or scientific evidence after months of investigations.
September 10, 2018: The United States intensifies state terrorism against Cuba through the blockade
On September 10, US President Donald Trump renewed the Trading with the Enemy Act for another year, a 1917 law that President John Kennedy resorted to in 1962 to impose the blockade, and since then all American presidents have renewed, although the world denounces the arbitrariness and hostility of this policy.
September 18, 2018: Who is behind the “new American moment” that Washington designs?
President Donald Trump appointed Mauricio Claver-Carone, Florida gangster “unconditional defender” of the blockade, head of the influential Cuba-United States Democracy Political Action Committee (US-Cuba Democracy PAC) as the new director of the Western Hemisphere of the National Security Council, a pressure group that took over from the terrorist Cuban American National Foundation (FNCA) as the most powerful anti-Cuban lobbying group in Washington DC and is dedicated to raising funds to maintain the policy of aggression against Havana.
That committee was made up of characters with a terrorist past and of various aggressions against Cuba such as Diego Suárez, Alberto Hernández, Ninoska Pérez Castellón and Marcel Felipe. Most of them had links with murderers such as Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosh, Pedro Ramón, José Dionisio Suárez and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo.
December 12, 2018: Cuba: the US obsession
When the world celebrated Human Rights Day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo allegedly sent a letter – which first came to the media than its receiver – to Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez in which he raised his concern for human rights of the island.
February 13, 2019: Cuba’s Constitution is discussed and approved by Cubans
The OAS Secretary General, following the script dictated by the United States government, organized a conference against the Island about the Cuban constitutional reform project. On this occasion, Cuba was the victim of vulgar slander and lies.
April 18, 2019: The Cuban Revolution reiterates its firm determination to face the US aggressive escalation
The Revolutionary Government rejects in the strongest terms the decision to allow resolutions to be taken in US courts in the face of lawsuits against Cuban and foreign entities outside the jurisdiction of the United States and to strengthen the impediments of entry into the United States of directors and relatives of businessmen from companies that legitimately invest in Cuba, in properties that were nationalized.
It also repudiates the decision to restrain remittances sent by Cuban residents in the United States to their close relatives, to further restrict the travel of US citizens to Cuba and to apply additional financial sanctions.
Washington goes to the extreme of pressuring third-country governments to try to persuade Cuba to withdraw the supposed and unlikely military and security support, and even to stop providing support and solidarity to Venezuela.
May 2, 2019: They lie to justify other aggressions against Cuba
John Bolton said that Cuba has 20,000 soldiers in Venezuela and that we are intervening in its internal affairs.
May 3, 2019: We have fought like men, and sometimes like giants, to be free
US President Donald Trump’s government activated Title III of the Helms Burton Act on May, another hostile measure against Cuba carried out despite the great international rejection
May 14, 2019: Marco Rubio and Bob Menéndez propose law to ignore Cuban brands in the United States
US Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menéndez presented, on May 12, 2019, a bill before the United States Congress to prohibit the official recognition or rights of Cuban trademarks in the US nation. The bipartisan and bicameral legislation was entitled “Stolen trademarks should not be recognized by the United States”.
June 5, 2019: They can’t stop us: we will live and win
The Department of the Treasury decision not to allow cultural and educational trips to contact the best-known Cuban people known as “people to people”, and others related to travel and transportation services, remittances, banking, commerce and telecommunications businesses.
Decision of the Miami and Hialeah mayors
September 6, 2019: New sanctions in aggressive US escalation against Cuba
In a new action to strengthen the commercial, economic and financial blockade, the US Department of the Treasury modified the Asset Control Regulations of Cuba to impose new sanctions on our country.
“Through these regulatory amendments, the Treasury is denying Cuba’s access to currencies and we are curbing the Cuban government’s bad behavior while continuing to support the long-suffering people of Cuba”, Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin cynically stated.
Basically, the new penalties increase the restrictions for sending remittances and bank transactions. The US Government will impose a limit of one thousand US dollars per quarter in sending family remittances. It also prohibits the sending of remittances to close relatives of Cuban officials and members of the Communist Party of Cuba.
In its purpose for more than 60 years of suffocating the Cuban people, Washington eliminates the authorization to send donations. However, it has added a clause authorizing such remittances in case it encourages the growth of the Cuban private sector independent of government control.
They also imposed restrictions on U-turn transactions, which consist of transfers of funds carried out through a US bank, but which do not originate or are destined for this country, and in which neither the sender nor the receiver are subject to US jurisdiction. With the new rule, the White House puts an end to a prior permit that authorized these movements, so that US banking institutions can reject those transactions. (Granma)
