[News] Blockade and Subversion against Cuba: Fines to Banks and more than $50 million for Interference Programs

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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  Blockade and Subversion against Cuba: Fines to Banks and more than $50
  Million for Interference Programs

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By Randy Alonso Falcón on March 24, 2024


With total cynicism, the U.S. government and its embassy in Havana tried 
to dissociate themselves from the real and deep causes that led to last 
Sunday’s popular protests in some Cuban neighborhoods. “The United 
States is not behind the protests and these accusations are absurd”, 
said the State Department spokesman, while the diplomatic legation urged 
the Cuban government to attend to “the legitimate needs of the Cuban 
people”.

For the uninformed or professional cynics, such an imperial evasion 
might sound good to their ears. The poor little empire is not to blame 
for the blackouts or the lack of food that we Cubans suffer.

But reality is always stubborn and the facts themselves show the 
perverse nature of the imperial policy. News of this very week attest to 
that combination of total economic warfare and well-financed subversion 
that Washington is practicing against Cuba, without respite or compunction.

As if the persecution of Cuban finances were not suffocating enough, and 
in a clear sign of the global nature of that war, the U.S. government 
imposed a few days ago a fine of 3.7 million dollars on the Swiss bank 
EFG after accusing it of violating the relentless U.S. measures against 
Cuba and against individuals from other blacklisted nations, the U.S. 
Treasury Department said.

EFG is a private bank with about $165.7 billion in assets under 
management and offers a range of financial services to institutional 
clients and individuals worldwide.

A few months ago, sanctions had also been imposed on the US-based 
financial company daVinci for not complying with the blockade sanctions.

Because of those precedents and others, and due to the qualification as 
a State that allegedly sponsors terrorism, numerous companies and 
financial entities in the world refused to operate with Cuba for fear of 
reprisals from the US government, specifically from the Treasury 
Department, denounced the report that Cuba presented to the UN in 
October 2023 on the effects of the blockade.

Dozens of banks suspended their operations with the country, including 
transfers for the purchase of food, medicines, fuel, materials, parts 
and other goods.

/Between March 2022 and February 2023, the number of foreign banks that 
for different reasons refused to carry out operations with Cuban banks 
amounted to 130 (75 from Europe, 21 from America and 34 from the rest of 
the world), with 267 operations involved./

/The Swiss banks UBS, Banque Cler and the Cantonal Bank of Basel refused 
to transfer donations made to Cuba by the Swiss solidarity organizations 
MediCuba-Switzerland and the Swiss-Cuba Association, which were to be 
used for the purchase of surgical instruments for the burns and 
reconstructive surgery unit of the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital./

/Deutsche Bank and the Royal Bank of Canada also repeatedly refused to 
accept payments from the Center for Genetic Engineering and 
Biotechnology (CIGB) to patent firms that represent us in different 
countries, which affects any future action of negotiation, registration 
or commercialization of our products abroad./

/ Since 2021, we have faced the refusal of three European banks to carry 
out operations with the International Financial Bank (BFI) and the Banco 
Internacional de Comercio S.A. (BICSA), which caused a supplier to stop 
the technical services it was to provide to the CIGB Plant in Mariel, 
where the Abdala vaccine against COVID-19 is produced on an industrial 
scale./

 From Cuba’s Report to the UN on the Blockade in 2023

More money for subversive plans, mercenaries and network agitators

On Friday, March 22, the anti-Cuban mafia in the House of 
Representatives managed to introduce in the Resolution authorizing the 
financing of 1.2 billion dollars to sustain the operations of some areas 
of the US Government (the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, 
Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, State and the Legislative 
Branch), an amount of more than 50 million dollars for subversive 
actions in Cuba, with emphasis on media manipulation campaigns.

According to a press release issued by the office of anti-Cuban 
Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, the regulation contemplates 25 million 
dollars for programs for the “promotion of democracy in Cuba”. The sum 
represents an increase of 25% in relation to 2023.

These programs are mainly aimed at developing subversive actions against 
Cuba and manipulative campaigns within the United States and in the rest 
of the world. Through the State Department, NED and USAID, they 
generously finance anti-Cuban lobby organizations in Florida and 
elsewhere and pay their allowance to the mercenaries they have in Cuba.

Part of that funding is used to maintain the anti-Cuban media machine 
and the social network agitators they have been fostering over the last 
ten years with the express purpose of impacting, generating manipulated 
narratives and confusing Cuban public opinion.

With that same purpose, the legislative proposal approved by the House 
allocates 25 million for the 2024 work of the Office of Broadcasting to 
Cuba, in charge of Radio and TV Martí. This is a significant increase 
with respect to the 13 million that was approved in the previous fiscal 
year.

An unspecified additional amount is also reserved for the Open 
Technology Fund to promote technologies that foster “Internet freedom” 
in Cuba, a country that today has a connectivity rate higher than the 
world average, despite the obstacles imposed by the blockade itself to 
the acquisition of technologies with 10% U.S. components and to the 
access of Cuban computer and tele-communicators to numerous programs and 
applications.

In that sense, the regulation establishes that 90 days after the final 
approval of the law, the Secretary of State and the executive director 
of the U.S. Global Media Agency (in consultation with the president of 
the Open Technology Fund) shall submit to the Appropriations Committees 
the funds and plans to implement the provisions with respect to the 
programs for the development of Internet technologies.

/On April 6, 2023, Microsoft Corporation, headquartered in Redmond, 
Washington, agreed to remit to the Treasury Department’s OFAC 
$2,980,265.86 and to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and 
Security (BIS) another $347,631 for violations of various U.S. coercive 
programs, including Cuba. The total penalty amounted to 3 million 327 
thousand 896 dollars. The communiqués from both agencies stated that the 
company incurred in 1,339 violations related to the export of services 
or software to “sanctioned” jurisdictions, such as Iran, Syria and 
Ukraine/Russia. 54 of these apparent violations corresponded to the 
Cuban Assets Control Regulations./ (From Cuba’s report to the UN on the 
blockade 2023)

Zero foreign exchange for entrepreneurs and public health

“We are working for the welfare of the Cuban people” is the phrase most 
often used by U.S. politicians and diplomats when they try to justify 
their irrational actions against Cuba by enabling a band-aid measure to 
the bitter economic war.

But even a timid step by the Biden administration, with specific 
interests and limited scope, such as privileging the Cuban private 
sector with some facilities, is too much for the anti-Cuban right-wing 
gorillas and their allies in Congress.

The bill -which must now go to the Senate-, contains a pronouncement 
that prohibits the use of funds available for programs of “promotion of 
democracy in Cuba” on issues related to “business promotion, economic 
reform, entrepreneurship or any other assistance”.

According to the press release issued by Mario Diaz-Balart’s office -who 
promoted the inclusion of the punitive measure-, the prohibition to use 
U.S. Government public funds in the promotion of entrepreneurship in 
Cuba is a “[solid restriction] to prevent the Biden Administration from 
using democracy funds for unauthorized purposes”.

Finally, the resolution includes sanctions against governments and 
officials who contract the services of Cuban doctors, in another attempt 
to deprive Cuba of foreign currency legally obtained from the export of 
services, and whose main purpose is to sustain the Cuban public health 
system, which is now in dire need of medicines, equipment and medical 
supplies.

The norm qualifies the hiring of Cuban doctors abroad as “coerced and 
trafficked labor” and establishes, says Díaz-Balart, “clear instructions 
on the denial of visas to governments and international organizations 
involved in the trafficking of Cuban doctors”.

In barely a week, the U.S. political class and its operators have given 
a clear demonstration of their non-guilt in the unrest in Cuba. That 
they block, sanction, impede, restrict, persecute the finances, trade 
and exports of Cuba and its citizens and that they manipulate, lie, 
finance campaigns and foment hatred and digital and physical violence 
has nothing to do with our shortcomings and difficulties. All those in 
the White House, the Capitol and the Cuba haters in Miami Cuba haters 
they are all the good guys.

Source: Cubadebate 
<http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2024/03/24/bloqueo-y-subversion-contra-cuba-multas-a-bancos-y-mas-de-50-millones-para-programas-injerencistas/>, 
translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English
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