Cuba has announced that it would release over 500 prisoners in exchange to Washington’s removal of the communist country from its list of terror sponsors, in a deal welcomed by relatives of imprisoned demonstrators.
The White House said that President Joe Biden was removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism as one of his final official acts before Donald Trump is sworn in next Monday.
Trump is expected to revoke the move, as he renewed Cuba’s terror designation in the final days of his first term in 2021.
The deal was negotiated with the help of the Catholic Church for the release of “political prisoners in Cuba and those who have been detained unjustly,” the official added.
Family members of jailed protesters hailed the announcement.
According to official Cuban figures, some 500 people were given sentences of up to 25 years in prison for participating, but rights groups and the US embassy say the figure is closer to 1,000.
Some have already been freed after serving their sentences.
Cuba welcomed Washington’s announcement Tuesday as a step in the “right direction,” but lamented it was still under US sanctions in place since 1962.
The foreign ministry later announced that 553 people imprisoned for “diverse crimes” will be released.
Cuba blames the US blockade for its worst economic crisis in decades, marked by shortages of fuel, food, medicines and electricity.
Trump’s first presidential term from 2017 to 2021 saw a tightening of sanctions against Cuba that had been loosened during a period of détente under his predecessor Barack Obama.
Before assuming office, Biden had promised changes in US policy towards the island, but postponed these after Havana’s crackdown on the 2021 protests.
But Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel has described US sanctions as “genocidal” and said his country was prepared for “more difficult circumstances” after Trump’s election.
The incoming president’s allies immediately criticised Biden over Tuesday’s announcement, with Ted Cruz , a Cuban-American member of the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee calling it a “rank appeasement of the Cuban regime.”
Trump has picked Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American who is extremely sceptical of communism and the left in general, to be his secretary of state.
According to a White House statement, Biden will also suspend part of the so-called Libertad Act, which underpins the US embargo on Cuba.
Biden would also reverse a Trump-era regulation known as “National Security Presidential Memorandum 5,” which lifted limits on financial transactions with certain Cuban organisations.
