WASHINGTON: The United States slapped sanctions on 21 leading Cuban security and government officials Wednesday, accusing them of a battle of persecution after President Nicolas Maduro’s severely contested July election.
Following Maduro’s allegations of fraud, Washington and the G7 announced that they had approved opposition member Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as president-elect.
The acting undersecretary of the Treasury Department, Bradley Smith, said in a statement,” Maduro and his associates ‘ restrictive activities in the wake of the Cuban presidential election are a determined attempt to silence the voices of its people.”
The assets freeze affects the heads of the police, the military intelligence service, the intelligence service, and the defense, along with 15 other members of Venezuela’s security apparatus.
The Colombian government’s head of prison service and the country’s communications minister are also at risk from the sanctions.
A mature US administration official told reporters that” all of these companies are members of Maduro’s protection equipment and are accountable for violently repressing peaceful demonstrators and executing random detentions.”
Urrutia was forced to flee to Spain, according to the US Treasury, who claimed Colombian security forces also issued an “unjustified arrest permit” for him.
At the same time, the US State Department said it was expanding visa regulations on Maduro’s friends.
” Maduro’s security equipment has engaged in common crimes, including deaths, persecution, and mass incarceration of marchers”, the State Department said in a speech.
16 Cuban authorities were subject to sanctions in September for alleged election fraud, according to the US.
Senior members of the Cuban political committee and Supreme Court were also present, according to the US Treasury, who claimed at the time that they “obstructed a clear democratic process and the release of precise election results.”
Maduro resisted widespread domestic and international force to discharge precise polling data to support his claim.
The original bus driver handpicked by the late conservative bodybuilder Hugo Chavez is then serving his second term amid uproar both domestically and abroad.
But the oil-rich region’s economy is in shambles, as Venezuelans endure severe shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods.
Maduro is accused of leading a brutally authoritarian leftist program that consistently targets the opposition.
