U.S. Secretary Of State Pompeo Again Telegraphs Returning Cuba To List Of State Sponsors Of Terrorism
/United States Department of State
Washington DC
5 January 2021
Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With David Rubenstein of Bloomberg News
Excerpts:
QUESTION: Okay. Let’s talk about some other things that have been in the news recently in your area of domain. It is said that you are considering labeling Cuba a terrorist nation on our State Department watchlist, I guess it is. Is that something you can comment on? Is that likely to happen?
SECRETARY POMPEO: We don’t get out in front of decisions that will be made on designations, but the world knows Cuba’s evil hand in so many places. I’ll give you the perfect example. We’ve been working to create democracy for the people of Venezuela for our entire four years, and it is Cuban efforts, Cuban security operations, Cubans controlling the security apparatus inside of Venezuela that has inflicted massive pain on the Venezuelan people. It is completely appropriate for us to consider whether Cuba is in fact sponsoring terrorism. And if so, just like any other nation that is providing material support to terrorists, they too should be designated such and treated in a way that’s consistent with that behavior that they’re undertaking.
QUESTION: I have been always wondering how Venezuela survives given the fact that its oil production is way down. It doesn’t seem to have an economy that’s – that’s very productive right now. How do you think Venezuela and the government in power there has been able to survive over all these years since Chavez died?
SECRETARY POMPEO: David, you’ve seen this – rogue regimes who inflict massive pain on their people can often survive well past their sell-by date. They do it by stealing. They do it by oppression. They do it by having control of the military or the capacity to inflict kinetic harm on people. They put their people in information fear as well – that is, they have the apparatus that can communicate to their people and impose real emotional burdens on them. They threaten them. Regimes often can survive far longer than the people who are being harmed by them would prefer.
And we’ve done everything we can to deliver for the Venezuelan people a better outcome. It’s tragic that Maduro continues to hang on and inflict so much harm. I think – I think now, David, we’re up to 12 to 15 percent of the Venezuelan people have fled their country. That’s a very telling statistic when that many people decide they just can’t hang in there. They can’t stay where they want to be; they can’t be home. We are very hopeful that the Venezuelan people under President – acting President – excuse me – President Guaido will see the light of day, and we hope that day comes soon.
