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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Blockade and Subversion
against Cuba: Fines to Banks and more than $50 Million
for Interference Programs</h1>
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<p>By Randy Alonso Falcón on March 24, 2024</p>
<p><img
src="https://i0.wp.com/resumen-english.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-27-randy-blockade.png?resize=300%2C166&ssl=1"
alt="" moz-do-not-send="true" width="300"
height="166"><br>
</p>
<p>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”.<span id="gmail-more-26260"></span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>A few months ago, sanctions had also been imposed
on the US-based financial company daVinci for not
complying with the blockade sanctions.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Dozens of banks suspended their operations with
the country, including transfers for the purchase
of food, medicines, fuel, materials, parts and
other goods.</p>
<p><em>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.</em></p>
<p><em>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.</em></p>
<p><em>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.</em></p>
<p><em> 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.</em></p>
<p>From Cuba’s Report to the UN on the Blockade in
2023</p>
<p>More money for subversive plans, mercenaries and
network agitators</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><em>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.</em> (From Cuba’s report to
the UN on the blockade 2023)</p>
<p>Zero foreign exchange for entrepreneurs and
public health</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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”.</p>
<p>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”.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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”.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Source: <a
href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2024/03/24/bloqueo-y-subversion-contra-cuba-multas-a-bancos-y-mas-de-50-millones-para-programas-injerencistas/"
moz-do-not-send="true">Cubadebate</a>,
translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English
</p>
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