Once US drops Cuba from terror list, Havana to free over 550 prisoners

Cuba said Tuesday it would release 553 prisoners in response to Washington removing the communist country from its list of terror sponsors in a deal hailed by relatives of jailed protesters.

The White House said President Joe Biden was removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in one of his last official acts before Donald Trump is sworn in next Monday.

The move will likely be overturned by Trump, who reinstated Cuba’s terror designation in the final days of his first term of office in 2021.

“An assessment has been completed, and we do not have information that supports Cuba’s designation as being a state sponsor of terrorism,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters.

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The deal was negotiated with the help of the Catholic Church for the release of “political prisoners in Cuba and those who have been detained unjustly,” the official added.

Family members of jailed protesters hailed the announcement, including Liset Fonseca, mother of 41-year-old Roberto Perez, sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.

He had taken part in anti-government protests with thousands of other Cubans in July 2021, fueled by power blackouts and soaring food prices.

“All the mothers of prisoners want our children to be free and out of that suffering, out of that hell that is the prisons in Cuba. They should never have been in prison,” Fonseca told AFP.

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One person was killed and dozens injured in the protests, which Havana accused Washington of orchestrating.

According to official Cuban figures, some 500 people were given sentences of up to 25 years in prison for participating, but rights groups and the US embassy say the figure is closer to 1,000.

Some have already been freed after serving their sentences.

‘Diverse crimes’

Cuba welcomed Washington’s announcement Tuesday as a step in the “right direction,” but lamented it was still under US sanctions in place since 1962.

The foreign ministry later announced that 553 people imprisoned for “diverse crimes” will be released.

Cuba blames the US blockade for its worst economic crisis in decades, marked by shortages of fuel, food, medicines and electricity.

Trump’s first presidential term from 2017 to 2021 saw a tightening of sanctions against Cuba that had been loosened during a period of detente under his predecessor Barack Obama.

Before assuming office, Biden had promised changes in US policy towards the island, but postponed these after Havana’s crackdown on the 2021 protests.

Analysts say the Covid-19 pandemic, which tanked tourism, and economic mismanagement by the government have contributed greatly to the poor state of the economy.

But Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel has described US sanctions as “genocidal” and said his country was prepared for “more difficult circumstances” after Trump’s election.

The incoming president’s allies immediately criticized Biden over Tuesday’s announcement, with Ted Cruz – a Cuban-American member of the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee – calling it a “rank appeasement of the Cuban regime.”

Trump has nominated Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American highly critical of communism and the left at large, to serve as his secretary of state.

A White House statement said Biden would also waive part of the so-called Libertad Act underpinning the US embargo of Cuba.

Biden would also rescind a Trump-era policy called “National Security Presidential Memorandum 5,” ending restrictions on financial transactions with certain Cuban entities.

Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro and a political party made up of the country’s disarmed ex-FARC guerrilla group, welcomed the White House announcement.

Cuba had hosted the talks from 2012 to 2016 that saw the FARC agree to lay down arms.