Cuban FM: US Creates Lies to Up Aggression Against Venezuela

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez says the United States administration under President Donald Trump is creating lies around his country in order to escalate aggression against Venezuela.

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In a Friday afternoon tweet Rodriguez said: “Among the most infamous lies by top #US officials are claiming presence of "Cuban troops" in #Venezuela; labeling more than 20000 Cuban cooperation workers in that country as "thugs" and accusing Cuba of "invading" and "controlling" Vzla. Those are ill-intended lies which I deny,” wrote the foreign minister.

Back in April, U.S. National Security Council John Bolton baselessly said Rodriguez had confirmed the presence of 20,000 “Cuban thugs” in Venezuela.  

On Wednesday U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Russia and Cuba of “intervening” in Venezuela to “destabilize” the nation. Rodriguez says the U.S. is “the true imperialist power in Venezuela” saying that Pompeo “makes a fool of himself with such a claim.”

Pompeo himself, along with U.S. President Donald Trump and his other top advisors have largely been responsible for the current scenario in Venezuela by orchestrating coups, implementing sanctions that are killing thousands of citizens there, and attacking Venezuela’s electrical system. The administration has brazenly admitted they are trying to take down Nicolas Maduro as president.   

On Thursday, May 2, the day the U.S. government fully implemented the Helms-Burton Act, Rodriguez tweeted: “Bolton and Pompeo lie again and again (...) Accusations vs. #Cuba is a vulgar slander. Blackmail is unacceptable. They look for pretexts to intensify the blockade and hostility against the Island.”

The law, passed in 1996, but never put enforce, allows U.S. companies and citizens, including Cubans with U.S. nationality, to file lawsuits against foreign companies linked to properties nationalized after the Cuban Revolution in 1959. ExxonMobil has already filed a claim against the island.

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Cuban Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment Rodrigo Malmierca, denounced on Friday the new measure and said his government would use “all appropriate measures” to combat the U.S. move, including bringing a case to the World Trade Organization.

Cuba's government considers that the full application of the Helms-Burton Act is a form of "political blackmail" to toughen the economic and financial blockade against its people and for its continued support of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who the U.S. government is trying to overthrow to control its massive oil reserves.

"There is no force, threat or blockade that can separate us from our principles of solidarity, internationalism, Latin Americanism, Bolivarianism and Martians. Latin America is a Zone of Peace. Viva Cuba libre," President Miguel Diaz-Canel tweeted Thursday.

In addition, the Cuban head diplomat reaffirmed that Cuba does not intervene in the internal aff of that South American nation, denounced 'the tendency to lie without limit or any restraint of government of the United States' and warned of its dangerous consequences.