A bipartisan group of senators has introduced legislation that would block financial transactions with the Cuban government’s military and security services.
Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., are the chief sponsors of the bill, which comes in response to the Obama administration’s decision to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and remove them from a terrorism watch list.
Rubio, Cotton and other lawmakers are staunchly opposed to lifting U.S. trade, travel and diplomatic restrictions now imposed against Cuba. The country remains a dictatorship and is accused of human rights violations, and many Republicans say the U.S. should only dismantle its restrictions against Cuba if Cuba agrees to radical changes.
The Rubio-Cotton Cuban Military Transparency Act is cosponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who like Rubio is of Cuban decent and is opposed to enhancing the U.S.-Cuba relationship.
Rubio said in a statement that his bill would prevent “hard currency” from getting into the hands of the Cuban regime, which would held ensure new financial resources make it to the Cuban people instead.
It would also create a Justice Department reward for the arrest or conviction of those in Cuba who are responsible for shooting down of a U.S. aircraft on a mission to rescue people trying to escape Cuba by raft in February, 1996.
“It is not in the interest of the United States or the people of Cuba for the U.S. to become a financier of the Castro regime’s brutality,” said Rubio. “The Cuban Military Transparency Act would prevent U.S. dollars from getting into the hands of the Cuban military and would demand accountability from the Obama administration regarding fugitives of American justice in Cuba, the return of stolen and uncompensated property and the role of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior in Cuba.”
