Biden administration has "hit the pause button" after historic Cuba protests

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Biden administration has "hit the pause button" after historic Cuba protests

The pause button was struck after the historic protests that rocked the communist-run island July 11, a senior U.S. official said.

There is a rule before July 11 and after July 11, Juan Gonzalez, the senior director of the National Security Council for the Western Hemisphere, told NBC News about the historic protests that took place in Cuba over the summer.

He said President Joe Biden is very passionate about human rights and matters of democracy. He is not one who feels like change will come if you let it happen. Critics of Biden's policy on Cuba say that the administration has largely left former President Donald Trump's policy, which included a barrage of sanctions, intact and has been slow to implement changes.

After July 11, we hit the pause button, Gonzalez said. Even those Cuban Americans who were pro-engagement said, "We need to wait - we need to look at this moment and figure out how we can move forward from here." The July 11 protests were a watershed moment for Cuba that took the world by surprise. Thousands poured into the streets and protested against a wide range of grievances, including lack of freedom, shortages of food and medicine, as well as the government's response to the coronaviruses epidemic. The demonstrations were the largest since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. The authorities responded with a massive crackdown. More than 1,200 arrests were made, according to the human rights group Cubalex. More than 600 are still in jail, including some minors.

Since July 11, open opposition and criticism of Cuba's government have grown. A group of activists planned an islandwide protest Nov. 15 that resulted in police and security agents preventing demonstrators from leaving their homes. There were 87 people arrested and 11 are still in jail. The most visible leader of the group went into exile in Spain.

More Cubans have access to the internet than ever before, and it has helped them communicate and organize. Many people who are calling for change are young internet-savvy people who are hungry for reforms. The authorities blocked popular communication sources such as WhatsApp and Facebook at one point during the July 11 protest, and they weren't fully restored until two days later. The blockade has resulted in calls in the U.S. for the Biden administration to find ways to provide internet to the island.

Gonzalez said the administration has spent an inordinate amount of time looking at the issue of internet connectivity and reviewing what the Trump administration did with the Cuba Internet Task Force it set up. There is no really technical, easy fix, nor is the technology there to have internet connectivity, so we should focus on censorship circumvention. Tensions between Washington and Havana have grown recently, with the island s government claiming that the U.S. is trying to destabilize Cuba by paying and directing dissidents. The Cuban government has stated that the decadeslong U.S. embargo is mostly to blame for the economic hardship caused by the protests.

The restrictions on travel and remittances are the most important policy issues for Cuban Americans. In 2019, Trump slowed travel to Havana's airport in the U.S. to nine airports in Cuba. The Western Union, which operated 407 locations throughout Cuba, was forced to close after Trump banned payments through its partner, the military-owned Fincimex. Biden promised during his 2020 campaign that he would lift the restrictions on travel and remittances.

Gonzalez wouldn't say if and when these restrictions would be lifted and that the administration is not looking at these isolated restrictions. He said that we are looking at the whole policy.

After the July protests, the administration set up a remittance working group to come up with innovative options to ensure money sent to the island doesn't fall into the hands of the military.

He said that we decided to further investigate and that a significant number of Cubans do not receive remittances.

How can we use remittances to support communities that aren't being benefited by this? Gonzalez said that the focus has been on sanctioning individuals, so we're going to continue to sanction those individuals. We want to promote a debate about what is going on in Cuba, which is a regime that is afraid of giving more rights and even engaging in a debate. He said that the administration is taking steps to restart consular processing, but did not offer a timeline. In 2017 the U.S. Embassy stepped down its staff after health incidents that affected employees and their families. Cubans have to fly to Guyana to get their visas processed at the U.S. Embassy there. In September, the State Department allowed diplomats in Cuba to be accompanied by adult family members.

Gonzalez said the process of restaffing takes time because of the health incidents. We want to get that started and we are taking the steps to get there.

When asked if the governments had had discussions, he said they've mostly been private conversations about U.S. offers of vaccine, oxygen and general humanitarian support during the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic.