US sanctions Cuban spy, nine regime entities

Washington, Aug 21 (IANS) The United States has imposed sanctions on three Cuban officials and nine entities, including the country’s construction ministry, accusing them of supporting Havana’s repressive apparatus and activities that threaten US national security.

The measures target the leadership of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, known as ICAP, along with state-controlled entities operating in construction, metals, mining and international trade.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ICAP formed part of a Cuban network operating in the United States under the guise of educational and cultural exchanges.

“The Cuban regime has long sponsored a vast subversive network in the United States aimed at identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing subversives, largely operating under the pretext of educational or cultural exchange,” Rubio said in a statement on Thursday.

The sanctions cover ICAP President Fernando Gonzalez Llort, First Vice-President Noemi Ramona Rabaza Fernandez and North America Director Leima Martinez Freire.

Gonzalez Llort was among the “Cuban Five”, a group of Cuban intelligence officers arrested in 1998. He spent 15 years in a US prison and was released to Cuba in 2014, according to the State Department.

Rubio accused Gonzalez Llort of continuing efforts to destabilise the United States through his work with ICAP following his return to Cuba.

The State Department had previously designated ICAP as a political subdivision, agency or instrumentality of the Cuban government. It said the institute hosts international brigades at several facilities across Cuba.

The Campamento Internacional Julio Antonio Mella, Casa Memorial Salvador Allende and Casa de la Amistad were identified as alternative ICAP addresses and will be treated as sanctioned property.

Rubio said Cuba recently used events marking the 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth to bring international sympathisers to Havana for contacts with government officials.

“The Trump Administration will not stand by while a hostile foreign power seeks to exploit our freedoms—none of which are afforded to its people—by misleading and corrupting American citizens with lies, spy tradecraft, and other malfeasance as part of the regime’s raison d’être of exporting Marxism, racial resentment, and Communist violence across the world,” he said.

The nine designated entities include the Ministry of Construction of Cuba and four companies linked to metals and mining.

They are Empresa de Niquel Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, which extracts and processes nickel and cobalt; Metalcuba; Grupo Empresarial Geominero Salinero; and Acinox Comercial.

The measures also cover ACOREC S.A., which supplies Cuban workers to foreign entities operating in the country. The State Department said the company had reportedly taken more than 90 per cent of wages paid by foreign entities for Cuban labour.

Three other sanctioned companies — Coratur S.A., Transimport and Consumimport — were designated over their links to the already-blocked Grupo Empresarial del Comercio Exterior. They handle international trade and imports ranging from heavy vehicles and industrial equipment to appliances and construction materials.

Under the sanctions, property and interests in property belonging to those designated that are held in the United States or controlled by US persons must be blocked and reported to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Entities owned at least 50 per cent by blocked persons are also subject to restrictions.

–IANS

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