{"id":210324,"date":"2019-12-05T15:25:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T20:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=210324"},"modified":"2019-12-05T15:25:04","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T20:25:04","slug":"u-s-accuses-cuba-of-hijacking-protests-in-latin-america-and-applies-more-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba-usa\/u-s-accuses-cuba-of-hijacking-protests-in-latin-america-and-applies-more-sanctions\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. accuses Cuba of \u201chijacking\u201d protests in Latin America and applies more sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hours before leaving for London for the 70th anniversary ceremony of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Cuba of trying to \u201chijack\u201d the public protests of recent weeks in Chile and Bolivia to include them in their ideological orbit.<\/span><\/p>\n

And hours after arriving in the British capital, the Trump administration announced a new package of sanctions against a group of oil tankers transporting crude from Venezuela to the island.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn just the last few years, we\u2019ve seen some truly remarkable things.\u00a0 Many nations have made a sharp turn towards democracy and capitalism, good government, away from dictatorship and socialism and the corruption that has been endemic in some of those countries. You see this just in the past few weeks.\u00a0The Bolivians are rebuilding their democracy even as we sit here today.\u00a0 No one in the region any longer believes that authoritarianism is the way forward, that it\u2019s the right path, whether you stare at the people in Cuba or in Nicaragua or in Venezuela,\u201d said the secretary of state in a speech at the University of Louisville, Kentucky.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pompeo said the United States assumes the \u201cmoral and strategic\u201d responsibility of making it appear that \u201cauthoritarianism in our hemisphere is a threat \u2013 it\u2019s a threat to us here in the United States.\u00a0 We cannot tolerate these regimes inviting bad actors in, and trying to turn allied democracies into dictatorships,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The secretary of state gave a long explanation of how, in his view, the Trump administration made the decision to roll back the thaw with Cuba established during the administration of Barack Obama \u201cby applying heavy new sanctions.\u00a0 We\u2019ve recognized that engagement has not improved Cuba\u2019s regime, it hasn\u2019t made it better; the human rights record was worse, the risk to the Cuban people was worse, and the risk to the United States was worse, and their capacity to influence Venezuela even greater.\u00a0 So we\u2019ve changed that,\u201d Pompeo explained, in a meeting organized by the leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, Mitch McConnell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The senior official also advocated the reactivation of the <\/span>Helms-Burton Act<\/span><\/a> last April. \u201cIt only makes sense when Americans had their stuff stolen to give them a chance to get it back,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pompeo also congratulated the recent expulsion of Cuban doctors practicing in several countries, such as Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil. \u201cWe\u2019ve applauded countries that have expelled Cubans who have come to live as doctors inside of their borders, who were really working on behalf of the [Cuban] government.\u00a0 These doctors \u2013 this was a program that\u2019s hard to fathom sometimes,\u201d said the secretary of state, who implied that Havana \u201chas also [through doctors] tried to hijack legitimate democratic protests in the region for its ideological purposes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To continue the rhetoric escalation of the last weeks between the two governments, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodr\u00edguez quickly responded to Pompeo’s words.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSecretary of State Pompeo lies shamelessly when he attributes to Cuba the just and legitimate protest of the Latin American peoples vs. the savage neo-liberal policies and brutal repression,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez wrote on his Twitter account, where he called for a stop to \u201cU.S. domination and intervention in Latin America.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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El Sec de Est #EEUU<\/a> Pompeo miente de forma desvergonzada cuando imputa a #Cuba<\/a> la justa y leg\u00edtima protesta de los pueblos latinoamericanos vs las salvajes pol\u00edticas neoliberales y la brutal represi\u00f3n. Cesen la Doctrina Monroe, la dominaci\u00f3n y la intervenci\u00f3n imperialista en AL<\/p>\n

— Bruno Rodr\u00edguez P (@BrunoRguezP) December 2, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n