Human rights activists fiercely criticized outgoing U.S. President’s Joe Biden’s last-minute decision to remove Cuba from the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism (SST) on Tuesday, granting a massive concession to the communist regime at the tail end of his presidency.
Biden, less than a week before leaving office, removed Cuba from the SST list on grounds that the Castro regime — known for its deep ties and support of international terrorist organizations around the world — “had not sponsored terrorism” for the past six months. According to the Biden administration, the Castro regime “provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.”
President Biden’s decision, while marking a significant capstone to a list of other concessions granted throughout his presidency, was deemed “limited” by the ruling communists, who insisted that the United States lift its “embargo” on the island-nation. Biden’s decision was International leftist activists highly praised the decision, including heads of state such as Colombia’s Marxist President Gustavo Petro and the regime of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, a key ally of the Cuban communists.
Cuba’s removal from the list reportedly follows negotiations featuring the intervention of the Vatican that, in return, saw the “excarceration” of 553 prisoners “convicted in due process for various crimes” that, according to the Castro regime, “will receive their respective benefits gradually.”
The human rights organization Prisoners Defenders denounced in its latest monthly report released on Tuesday that in Cuba, the concept of an “excarceration” does not translate into a full “release” and it means that the individuals retain their intact convictions. The “benefits” granted to the 553 individuals, the organization explained, are the same benefits that the communist regime has denied them for years.
Prisoner Defenders’ president Javier Larrondo stressed in remarks shared with reporters that the “released” individuals are subject to another level of persecution, harassment, and repression by the ruling communists, as they are denied the ability to freely work, study, and are at the constant threat of state security. State security officials can “arbitrarily revoke” the measure and send them back to prison at any moment.
Larrondo stated that Prisoner Defenders has seen “hundreds” of cases of “released” individuals who cannot live a normal life and are forced to either flee from Cuba or continue suffering from the post-release harassment and inability to live properly.
Larrondo further pointed out that human rights organizations have no way of confirming how many of the 553 “released” individuals are political prisoners as opposed to common criminals. He suggested that, out of the total, only “a few dozen” could be actual political prisoners and the rest common detainees. Larrondo asserted that the negotiation had “all the signs” of not having any positive effects for the people of Cuba.
Prisoner Defenders stated that some of the “released” individuals “would be granted parole, others perhaps extra-penal licenses, and others a series of subsidies of sentence, including forced labor without confinement.”
The human rights organization pointed out that in the last three months the Castro regime unjustly detained 58 Cuban citizens who peacefully protested against the state of Cuba’s ruined basic services — a number that exceeds the number of Cuban political prisoners released during the Obama administration.
“A government that prepares this measure while simultaneously committing such a large number of incarcerations of innocent people is still the same regime as yesterday, today, and always,” the report read:
Nothing will have changed, except for the perks that the regime obtains from this indecent ‘exchange’ (indecent as far as the regime is concerned, not those who have willingly procured it) and the change in the lives of a few hundred families who will be able to see their political prisoners at home again in the near future.
“In Cuba, however, there are 10 million Cubans drowning in repression. New families, unfortunately, will join each month those who suffer the scourge of political imprisonment, torture and an untold range of crimes against humanity,” the report continued. “These hundreds of new political prisoners, and those to whom the regime will deny their prison benefits, are the ones who must now focus all the pressure and public and political attention.”
According to Prisoner Defenders records, the Castro regime held 1,161 political prisoners by the end of 2024, 166 of which were detained throughout 2024.
Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), and Carlos Giménez (R-FL) released a joint video on Tuesday evening fiercely criticizing President Joe Biden for his decision to remove Cuba from the SST list.
Díaz-Balart decried the decision as an “affront to the national security interests of the United States” and accused Biden of lying to Congress and to the American people.
“They’ve taken them off of the state sponsor of terrorist designation list despite that regime harboring terrorists, harboring fugitives from the American law and despite the damage to the national security interests of the United States,” Díaz-Balart said. “This is shameful and an aggression to the national security interests of the United States.”
Salazar warned that Biden’s decision gives more oxygen to the Castro regime so that it can continue repressing its people. The representative further asserted that outgoing State Secretary Antony Blinken “repeatedly” told her that he was not thinking about removing Cuba from the list and that now “he called my office and said that Biden directly from the White House, that he had been directed that he had to take Cuba off the list.”
Giménez accused the Biden administration of being “a disaster for America, a disaster for the people, freedom-seeking people of Latin America, especially Cuba. And again, it’s a fitting farewell to this disastrous administration.”
“I’ve stated since the beginning of this administration, never listen to what the Biden administration tells you,” Giménez said. “Watch what they’re doing. And this is the last act of watching what they’re doing, which is helping our enemies and just trying to destroy our friends.”
Cuba was first designated as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1982 and remained in the list until 2015, when former President Barack Obama removed the country from the list. President-elect Donald Trump reintroduced Cuba to the list in January 2021.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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