Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez today rejected the impractical and threatening measures imposed by the United States.
“I strongly reject the decision of the State Department to prohibit the entry of the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba (FAR) to the United States, a measure without any practical effect, threatening and slanderous. I reiterate our invariable solidarity with Venezuela,” Rodríguez wrote in his Twitter account.
Washington has prohibited the high-ranking Cuban official, Army Corps General Leopoldo Cintra Frias, or any close family member from entering U.S. territory, another measure as part of the country’s hostile escalation against Cuba.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the decision is linked to Cuba’s support for the constitutional government of Venezuela, and its President, Nicolas Maduro.
This move is one more among a spiral of decisions and prohibitions meant to disrupt the Cuban government’s development plans and provoke hardship for the people by tightening the blockade.
Last November, Cuban Minister of the Interior, Julio César Gandarilla Bermejo, was sanctioned under the same Section 7031 (c), and in September, the Secretary General of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), Raúl Castro, was targeted.
Army Corps General Leopoldo Cintra Frias has a long record of service in the Revolutionary Armed Forces. He participated in and led internationalist combat actions in Ethiopia and Angola, where Cuban, Angolan and Namibian troops dealt a decisive blow to the racist army of South Africa, contributing to the end of apartheid and the independence of Namibia.
Cintra Frías holds the title of Hero of the Republic of Cuba and is a member of the Political Bureau of the Cuban Communist Party.
(Granma)