President Joe Biden’s administration, both formally and anonymously, has declared a dual policy to alleviate the financial problems of the Cuban communist government and the puppet socialist government in Venezuela, which leaves him with the leaders of both communities in alarm and confusion. .
On Tuesday, the State Department announced a series of measures that would bring unexpected financial returns to the Castro regime: returning the exemption to an almost non-existent embargo known as “group travel between people” – effectively legalizing group tourism on the island. disguised. considered “educational” – and the lifting of restrictions on money transfers to the island under former President Donald Trump. Tourism and remittances were major sources of income for the communist regime, whose army controlled everything from money transfer businesses to luxury hotels.
Later that day, several reports cited by the Biden administration, citing unnamed sources, indicated that the White House would soon allow Chevron Oil Corporation to continue business talks with Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), an oil company run by the Venezuelan regime, and lift sanctions. on one man: nephew of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, former PDVSA official.
Both statements preceded satirical talks in both regimes. In March, Biden sent a delegation to Caracas to discuss a possible resumption of Venezuelan oil purchases, allegedly to offset sanctions against Russia. Any payment for Venezuelan oil is likely to go directly to Moscow anyway, as the Venezuelan regime is heavily indebted to Russia. A month later, Biden’s team held a meeting with the Castro regime to discuss the alleged refugees who had fled en masse to the island following a brutal crackdown on suspected political dissidents. and towards the southern border. After President Barack Obama ended the “wet feet/dry feet” policy that allowed Cubans to make 90-mile trips to Florida, Cubans began using visa-free travel to countries like Guyana. and Nicaragua will ride on trafficker-controlled routes from South America to Texas.
Activists, public figures and analysts from both countries told Breitbart News this week that they do not expect Cubans or Venezuelans to benefit from the new pro-government policies.
“Biden’s policies are based in the wrong place,” said Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, co-founder and spokesperson for the Cuban Democratic Office.directory), he told Brietbart News on Tuesday. “(1) Through these measures, they will legalize Cuban immigration to the United States. They don’t. Cubans will continue to flee the oppressive tyranny they despise. And the Biden administration showed the communist dictatorship in Cuba once again that it can blackmail the United States by using immigration as a weapon.
The second premise, he continued, “is that these measures will help create an independent economic space in Cuba. They don’t. In a tightly controlled economy like Cuba, these measures can only help the Cuban military dictatorship establish a parasitic friendly capitalism that will enrich the patronage networks in Cuban society rather than helping ordinary Cubans. ”
He added that the third false premise is that “these measures will promote political freedoms.” They don’t.
As the statements of the regime after the political statements show, the dictatorship will not bow for one millimeter.” “Biden’s policy announcements came just hours after the regime introduced a stricter legislative act that rigidly formalized penalties for non-compliance and international support for that non-compliance.”
The Communist Party announced on Monday that 37 new “crimes” had been created, including “insulting” regime officials, who are now sentenced to three years in prison, ahead of the Biden administration’s announcement. Before the creation of the new penal code, the Castro regime still criminalized political dissent, but desakato (“Disrespect”) fabricated evidence that victims of persecution are guilty of actual crimes, such as assault or theft, or suspected of not supporting the regime.
Cuban dissident Daniel Llorente Miranda, who made international headlines in 2017 by disrupting a Communist May Day march in Havana and waving the American flag that led to the gang crushing of the regime, told Breitbart News that the new policy makes him feel that. “Biden does not respect the views and positions of the Cuban opposition,” he said. Llorente, who now lives in Florida after her frightening journey that started with her forced exile by gun, also complains that the Cuban opposition as a whole should develop its “organization” in this way. . , without explanation.
Cuban dissident Daniel Llorente Miranda, an anti-communist and pro-American protester, was admitted to one of the country’s most notorious psychiatric hospitals in 2017 after breaking the annual May Day parade in which he ran the parade while waving the American flag. . (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Cuban activists have also used social media to denounce the regime’s concessions.
“Yesterday the Cuban regime passed one of the harshest penal laws against dissidents and civil society,” said Cuban LGBT activist Magdiel Jorge Castro. “Today the US government announced a package of measures to change its policy towards Cuba. Someone advised Joe Biden, it’s really bad here! ”
Biden faced opposition even from veteran Democrats in Cuban society. U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Tuesday that the policy change “risks sending the wrong signal to the wrong people, at the wrong time and for completely wrong reasons.”
“I am disappointed to learn that the Biden administration will begin to allow the group to travel to Cuba through tourism-like visits,” Menendez said. “To be clear, those who still believe that increased travel will lead to the development of democracy in Cuba are in a state of decline.”
Ruben Chirino Leañez, CEO of Venezuelan opinion polling firm Meganálisis, told Breitbart News on Wednesday that Biden’s policies in his country would evoke the same revulsion as Cubans. He stressed that although it was merely a “political act”, which Chirino said is unlikely to lead to significant changes in the daily lives of Venezuelans, the Biden administration, through unidentified senior officials, forced the Venezuelan opposition to approve the sanctions. Meganálisis’ latest survey of the opposition, published in March, showed that around 80 percent of respondents in the country believed the opposition was made up of “dealers” or sincere socialists who supported the Maduro regime.
“As in the March Meganálisis poll, the perception of the opposition as an accomplice, a deceptive political opposition has risen,” explains Chirino. “The Biden administration itself uses it almost Pontius Pilate style. . He goes back, washes his hands, says that everything he does is done according to the provisional government. [President Juan Guaidó]continues to recognize and Guaidó as leader of the opposition. ”
According to the terms of the Venezuelan constitution, Guaidó is the President of Venezuela. Dictator Nicolás Maduro makes Guaidó with complete control over the army, law enforcement, courts and all other practical government agencies. really no power. Guaidó reiterated support for dialogue between Maduro and the opposition, a dialogue that the Biden administration claims should ease sanctions.
“The Biden government’s confirmation that it was acting in liaison with the Guaidó government confirms that Guaidó and his interim government, this highly rejected group, justified the lifting of these two sanctions,” Chirino said. “As we already know, this group [by] More than 80 percent of Venezuelans have been sold in the interest of socialism, which has sold itself as an immoral industry… this is false opposition to the majority of Venezuelans. ”
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido acts at a rally as part of a demonstration outside the National Assembly in the Las Mercedes neighborhood of eastern Caracas, March 10, 2020. (via CRISTIAN HERNANDEZ/AFP Getty Images) #
Chirino said the lifting of sanctions also gave the Venezuelan public the impression that the Biden administration was a “weak government”. [with] complete weakness.
“Biden, as the ultimate leader of the most powerful country in the world since coming to power, is a man who has never given Venezuelans hope,” Chirino said. “On the contrary, he now reaffirmed himself as a timid, unstable, weak president.”
Chirino also complained that the policy would not improve the plight of most Venezuelans under socialism in a humanitarian situation.
“Chevron’s doing business with PDVSA will not affect the daily lives of Venezuelans who struggle and have to wake up every morning with the feeling of not getting a plate of food,” Chirino said. Said. Breitbart News said.
Disgust at Biden’s policies towards Cubans and Venezuelans is unlikely to improve the dire conditions faced by Democrats in the Hispanic vote in the United States. A poll released in December showed that 40 percent of Hispanic Americans were concerned that “Democrats are embracing socialism,” and that this concern was not limited to the Cuban and Venezuelan majority. Biden received the lowest Hispanic approval rating of all time, down just 26 percent in April. In contrast, 31% of non-Hispanic white Americans endorsed Biden in the same survey conducted by Quinnipiac University.
Source: Breitbart
