WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. Government on Thursday barred Cuba's former President Raul Castro and his family members from entering the United States, accusing the Communist leader of violating human rights.
The US State Department announced travel sanctions against Castro and his children, Alejandro Castro Espin, Deborah Castro Espin, Mariela Castro Espin, and Nilsa Castro Espin.
Mariela, a known advocate for gay rights and HIV/AIDS awareness, faced the wrath of U.S.-based critics of the Castros during her 2012 U.S. visit.
Castro's wife Vilma Espín died in 2007.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that as First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, Raul Castro oversees a system that arbitrarily detains thousands of Cubans and currently holds more than 100 political prisoners.
As First Secretary of Cuba's Armed Forces, he is responsible for the government's actions to prop up the Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela through violence, intimidation, and repression, Pompeo said in a statement.
He also accused the Cuban security forces of indulging in gross human rights violations and abuses in Venezuela in collusion with Maduro's military and intelligence officers.
'Castro is complicit in undermining Venezuela's democracy and triggering the hemisphere's largest humanitarian crisis, forcing 15 percent of the Venezuelan population to flee the country and precipitating a food shortage and health crisis of unprecedented scale in this region,' Pompeo said.
The capitalist and Communist nations came close to normalizing their decades-old estranged relationship during the rule of President Barack Obama,.
Obama paid a historic visit to Cuba in March 2016, and removed that country from Washington's list of 'State Sponsor of Terrorism'.
But President Donald Trump made his anti-Socialist stand clear to Havana even before he assumed power.
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