14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 7 December 2023 — The politician Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, the journalist Ninoska Pérez, and the presenter Alex Otaola are some of the 61 names on the National Terrorist List published this Thursday by the Cuban Ministry of the Interior. The inventory also includes 19 organizations “that carry out actions against State security,” whose members, they warn, are “wanted by the authorities.”
In the extraordinary Official Gazette, number 83 of this year, Resolution 19 has been published, which begins by referring to the Security Council of the United Nations Organization in its regulations “relative to the prevention and confrontation of terrorism and its financing.” Under this section, Havana justifies the list of names that it accuses of “stimulating, financing and executing acts of sabotage” or “promoting, organizing and executing the carrying out of activities against the functioning of public institutions.”
Among those mentioned in the Resolution, activists such as Eliécer Ávila Cicilia, influencers in the style of Liudmila Santiesteban Cruz (Liu Santiesteban), Alain Lambert Sánchez (Paparazzi cubano) and Manuel Milanés Pizonero stand out. All of them were born on the Island and in recent years have become loudspeakers of complaints about the lack of rights on the Island and have frequently reported acts of corruption by government officials.
Among those mentioned in The Resolution highlights activists such as Eliécer Ávila Cicilia, ’influencers’ in the style of Liu Santiesteban, Paparazzi Cubano or Manuel Milanés Pizonero
Against them, the Gazette does not spare insults and accuses them of “destabilizing the social order in Cuba” and mixes, in the same document, causes that range from the attempted derailment of a train to the more indefinite “carrying out actions that affect the social order in Cuba.” The article also calls on the United States to “work together to prevent and suppress acts of terrorism, in particular by increasing its cooperation and fully complying with international conventions against terrorism.”
The list of Cuban exiles, the majority residing in the United States, is published just a week after Washington decided to keep Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism for another year. The list also includes organizations ranging from the Cuban American National Foundation through the Movimiento 30 de noviembre and the Asamblea de la Resistencia.
The Resolution came into force this Thursday after its publication and opens the question of how Havana will proceed with the new list. Unlike other lists of sanctions at the international level, the one reflected in this Official Gazette appears to be, so far, for internal use by Cuban courts.
The inclusion of Cuba among the countries that sponsor terrorism began in 1982 but the Island was taken off the lost in 2015, during the period of diplomatic thaw promoted by US President Barack Obama (2009-2017). In January 2021, Havana returned to the list in one of the last decisions made by the Administration of Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021) before leaving the White House.
Washington then justified the measure by alluding to the presence on the island of members of the Colombian guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN), who traveled to Havana to begin peace negotiations with the Government of Colombia.
The relationship between Cuban exiles, the majority of whom reside in the United States, is published just a week after Washington decided to keep Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism for another year
Two years later, at the beginning of this month the Administration of Democrat Joe Biden considered in a report that “the Cuban Government did not formally respond to the extradition requests” of ELN leaders Pablo Tejada and Pablo Beltrán, presented by Colombia.
He also denounced that “Cuba also continues to harbor several American fugitives from justice wanted on charges related to political violence, many of whom have resided in Cuba for decades.”
To designate a country as a sponsor of terrorism, US law requires the Secretary of State to determine that the government of that nation has repeatedly provided support to terrorist groups.
This designation supports a ban on arms sales with that country, greater control of its exports, restrictions on foreign aid, greater visa requirements and various economic sanctions.
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