Entrenched in their “Homeland or Death” chant and vowing to prevail against the “imperialist onslaught,” Cuba’s leaders have paused the release of political prisoners and kicked off military exercises following President Donald Trump’s first-day decision to put the country back on the list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
Just a week earlier, former President Joe Biden had taken Cuba off the list after telling Congress the Cuban government did not provide “any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period.”
Trump also nullified Biden’s decision to eliminate a list of sanctioned Cuban military companies and hotels.
Biden’s measures were instrumental in a deal mediated by the Vatican, under which the Cuban government agreed to release 553 “prisoners.” While it was unclear whether some or all would be political prisoners, shortly after Biden’s announcement Cuban authorities started releasing political prisoners, as many as 170, according to a recount by an independent media coalition.
But that came to a halt after Trump reversed Biden’s actions on Monday evening shortly after his inauguration.
On Wednesday, Justicia11J, an organization that tracks politically motivated arrests in Cuba, sounded the alert and said in a statement that they had not received information of new prisoners released since Monday.
“The absence of reports from the Island alarms us,” the group said. “We demand that the Havana regime not pause the release of people deprived of liberty for political reasons, in compliance with the commitments made to the Catholic Church. We also ask that, in an exercise of transparency that they lack so far, the authorities make public the list of people who have benefited to date.”
According to the group’s data, 167 political prisoners have been released or received some other relief. But none have been pardoned or received amnesty, which makes them vulnerable to returning to prison, the group warned.
Freedom House, a U.S.-based organization that issues an annual report on the respect of freedoms in countries around the world, urged the Cuban government to release all political prisoners, which several human rights groups say surpass a thousand.
“Justice requires the release of all political prisoners in Cuba, an end to political imprisonment as a tool for social control, and systemic reforms by the Díaz-Canel regime that guarantee the full exercise of fundamental rights without fear of reprisal,” the organization said. “Without those reforms, this release risks perpetuating a revolving door of political imprisonment, wherein the Cuban regime will fill now-empty prison cells with new arbitrarily detained people in the coming weeks and months.”
But Trump’s decision seems to have struck a chord, given the tone of Cuban authorities’ reactions.
“President Trump, drunk with arrogance, decides, for no good reason, #Cuba sponsors terrorism,” said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez in an English publication on X. “He knows he’s LYING. He’s bent on strengthening punishment & economic warfare vs Cuban families. He’ll cause harm but won’t succeed in breaking our people’s firm determination.”
Rodríguez also called Trump’s policies “medieval.”
In a similar light, Cuba’s leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said Trump’s decision to put Cuba back on the list was an “act of arrogance and contempt for the truth… an act of mockery and abuse (that) confirms the discredit of the lists and unilateral coercive mechanisms of the U.S. government.”
A Tuesday statement simply signed by “the revolutionary government” said: “Trump has interpreted his coming to power as the coronation of an emperor.” It labels his decision to designate Cuba as a sponsor of terror as an “act of aggression by the United States government against the Cuban people” that would not succeed in derailing the country from its socialist path.
The statement end ends with the customary “Homeland or Death. We will prevail.”
On Wednesday, the Armed Forces Ministry said it was beginning military exercises that had been postponed in November to “raise the country’s readiness for defense and the preparation of troops and the population to face the different actions of the enemy.”
In a Wednesday meeting surrounded by military commanders and government officials, Díaz-Canel made clear that meant the United States.
“We are doing this exercise in the midst of a situation that is almost real,” he said. “We are subjected to a policy by the new leadership of the United States government that is totally hegemonic, interventionist, that treats Cuba with tremendous contempt and we have already begun to see its first actions against the revolution.”
In another sign that Díaz-Canel’s title of commander in chief of the armed forces is essentially symbolic, he then “proposed” to the officially retired general Raúl Castro, sitting in the first row facing Díaz-Canel during the meeting, to kick off the military exercises that are supposed to last until Saturday. Castro stood up and simply said: “Begin.”
The rhetoric and posturing come after an initial muted response to Trump’s victory, as officials discreetly sought advice from contacts in the United States on how to handle relations with the new president. But officials became unsettled when news broke that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Cuban American Republican from Florida whom Cuba considers an archenemy, was likely to become the next U.S. secretary of state, sources who asked not to be named to speak of their interactions with Cuban officials, said. Rubio has since been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Still, Cuban authorities released opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer last week, which some experts saw as a signal the Cuban government wanted to show it was serious about the agreement with the Vatican.
Four days later, the island’s government was again on the U.S. blacklist.
A Cuban diplomat asked on X, “What did Cuba do in six days to deserve to return to a list of those who sponsor terrorism?”
Cuban authorities have long argued the designation is unjustified, burdens the island’s economy and hurts the population.
The country has been on and off the list since former President Ronald Reagan first included it in 1982. Former President Barack Obama removed it in 2015 as a condition to reopening the U.S. Embassy in Havana, and Trump put it back on the list in the final days of his first term in January 2021.
At that time, Trump cited Cuba’s harboring fugitives of American justice and ELN guerrilla leaders wanted by the Colombian government of former president Iván Duque. Cuba refused to extradite them, claiming it went against international law and a peace treaty between the guerrillas and the Colombian government that Cuba helped broker.
Current Colombian president Gustavo Petro dropped the extradition request and asked former president Biden to remove Cuba from the terror-sponsor list. A senior official in the Biden administration told reporters last week that Petro’s outreach had played a role in Biden’s decision to delist Cuba.
But in a plot twist Thursday following new acts of violence by the ELN, Colombia’s attorney general Luz Adriana Camargo said her office would “reactivate the extradition request” of ELN leaders once they have been located “in Cuba or elsewhere.”
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