Alexandria, Virginia – A coalition of organizations including Cuba Archive, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and the Global Liberty Alliance sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week urging the administration to step up efforts to hold Cuba to account for human trafficking in healthcare workers. The letter is embedded at the end of this post. “The Cuban regime uses medical missions to gain economic and political benefits and, in the process, to undermine U.S. interests throughout the region and beyond,” says the letter. “In Venezuela, Cuba’s medical “collaborators” have long been used as political weapons to export Cuban communism. Cuba’s medical missions have been expelled from Brazil, El Salvador, and, most recently, Ecuador and Bolivia owing to security and human rights issues.”
The Cuba Archive, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and the Global Liberty Alliance have teamed to help raise awareness of Cuba’s human trafficking in healthcare workers. Among other action items, during the next few months, the coalition will publish evidence of healthcare human trafficking and also hold traffickers to account in a variety of ways.
The coalition recommends the “U.S. government expand its use of economic sanctions and deny U.S. visas to foreign government officials or private sector stakeholders who are known to have been or are implicated in, or responsible for, the exploitation of Cuban medical workers.” “Human trafficking in health workers by Cuba impacts well beyond the island gulag, hurting U.S. national security and foreign policy interests in the Western Hemisphere and beyond,” Jason Poblete, GLA Chief Counsel said. “We look forward to working with the Cuba Archive and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to expose this network and hold lawbreakers to account,” added Poblete. 2011-11-15 Sec. Pompeo Lett... by Jason I. Poblete on Scribd Alexandria, Virginia – The U.S. Department of State announced this weekend that the U.S. government had imposed economic sanctions and visa restrictions on a high-ranking Cuban intelligence official and his family for gross violations of fundamental rights in Cuba and Venezuela. “This is a good development and builds upon President Trump’s reorientation of U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. For decades the Communist Party, as well as senior Cuban government officials, have been given free pass by U.S. policymakers and allies in the region,” said Jason Poblete of the Global Liberty Alliance. “Access to the U.S. market is a privilege, not a right. Anyone who engages or facilitates gross violations of fundamental rights should be held to account. This designation is part of that process,” added Poblete. The State Department November 16 notice states Mr. Julio Cesar Gandarilla Bermejo, Cuba’s Minister of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior (MININT), had been publicly designated under Section 7031(c) of the FY 2019 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, due to his involvement, by command responsibility, in gross violations of human rights. The designation can be done publicly or privately. In this case, it was done publicly, likely to send a message to senior Cuban regime officials. Pursuant to U.S. laws, the Secretary of State can make these designations where the Secretary has credible information that foreign government officials have been involved in significant corruption or a gross violation of human rights (GVHR). When these individuals and their immediate family members are designated, they are deemed ineligible for entry into the United States. In addition to the public designation of Julio Cesar Gandarilla Bermejo, Secretary of State Pompeo publicly designated his children, Julio Cesar Gandarilla Sarmiento, and Alejandro Gandarilla Sarmiento. The Global Liberty Alliance, in conjunction with several other human rights advocacy groups, urged the Trump administration earlier this year to publicly designate and impose economic sanctions on Cuba’s Office of Religious Affairs. You can read more about it here. In addition, for several years the Global Liberty Alliance has also recommended other designations of senior officials of the Communist Party and the Cuban government. “Other governments in the Americas and beyond should support the Trump administration’s efforts to hold gross violators of fundamental rights to account. Spain, Canada, the European Union, indeed, any nation with close relations with Cuba should impose economic sanctions and deny visas to senior regime officials and their family members,” added Poblete.
Alexandria, Virginia – For several weeks, the Communist government of Cuba and the party apparatus have ruthlessly targeted Cuban opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (“UNPACU”). Unlawfully detained on October 1, 2019, Mr. Ferrer has since been subjected to all forms of torture.
With the support of Mr. Ferrer’s family and a coalition that represents a large cross-section of Cuba’s opposition movement, the Global Liberty Alliance (“GLA”) requested that the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights of the Organization of American States press the Cuban government to adopt precautionary measures to protect the lives of Mr. Ferrer and his other UNPACU colleagues who have been unlawfully detained in Cuba for weeks. Attached is the complete press release with supporting documentation. U.S. POLICY MAKERS URGE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO IMPOSE ADDITIONAL SANCTIONS ON NICARAGUAN OFFICIALS11/9/2019
In a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin this week, House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee Chairman Albio Sires (D- New Jersey) urged the Trump administration to hold Nicaraguan officials accountable for acts of corruption and serious violations of human rights.
“The repression carried out against peaceful protestors in 2018 by security forces and affiliated groups under the direction of President Daniel Ortega resulted in over 300 deaths and 800 arbitrary detentions,” Chairman Sires said. Sires added that “[w]hile I appreciate the actions that your department has already taken, including designations of three officials that were announced today, I urge you to fully utilize the tools available under U.S. law,” and impose additional sanctions on other Nicaraguan officials. For several years the Global Liberty Alliance has been tracking gross violations of fundamental rights in Nicaragua. The GLA has also met or talked with civil society leaders from Nicaragua, including family members and representatives of American citizens who have been targeted by the Ortega-Murillo regime. The GLA has also been urging U.S. policymakers to impose tougher sanctions, visa restrictions, and otherwise hold violators of fundamental rights to account for what they have done, and continue to do, to undermine regional security and U.S. national interests. Since 2008 several Americans have been killed and/or tortured by agents of the Cuba-backed Ortega-Murillo regime. Embedded in this post is a copy of Chairman Sires’s letter to Secretary Mnunuchin. Nic Letter 11-7-19 on Scribd: Nic Letter 11-7-19 by Jason I. Poblete on Scribd |
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