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The official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, Granma, published an extensive institutional defense article titled "Cuba, the GAE and the United States: Anatomy of a State Calumny" this Tuesday.
The text about the Business Administration Group (GAE) claims the military conglomerate is a patriotic institution, asserts that it is transparent, and denies that it is a vehicle for the personal enrichment of the Castro elites.
The article from Granma directly addresses the sanctions imposed by Washington on May 1 through Executive Order 14404, which named GAESA as a central target of the maximum pressure policy against the Cuban regime.
He describes the U.S. sanctions as "the most intense, disproportionate, and dangerous escalation in the recent history of relations between Cuba and the United States" and attributes them to "ideologues from the Cuban-American far right."
He asserts that "the GAE is not an opaque structure, nor parallel to the Cuban state," and adds that "it is not the work of secrecy, nor of elites, and much less a means for the enrichment of a few."
To support that thesis, the text lists a series of supposed contributions by the conglomerate:
- the construction of more than 10,000 homes in various provinces
- investments in the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant in Holguín
- hydraulic works such as the East-West and North-South transfers
- repairs to polyclinics and schools
The article cites the leader Miguel Díaz-Canel, who at the 8th Congress of the Party acknowledged the "business improvement" developed within the Revolutionary Armed Forces as an experience that "later benefited the country."
It also refers to a quote from Army General Raúl Castro, who reportedly described GAESA's work as being carried out "without the slightest desire for protagonism, as serious things are done."
The official defense comes at a moment of unprecedented pressure. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on May 7direct sanctions against GAESA, its CEO Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera —a brigadier general of the FAR— and the mining company Moa Nickel S.A.
The Department of State accuses GAESA of controlling up to $20 billion in illicit assets deposited in foreign bank accounts, and of handling revenues that "likely triple the Cuban state budget."
Washington described the conglomerate as "the core of Cuba's kleptocratic communist system," designed "to generate income not for the Cuban people, but solely for the benefit of its corrupt elites."
The sanctions include secondary measures against any foreign actor doing business with GAESA, with a grace period that ends on June 5 —just three days after the publication of the article in Granma— for foreign companies to sever their ties with the conglomerate.
The pressure also extended to the family of the head of GAESA. On May 21, agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Adys Lastres Morera in Miami, sister of Ania, who was subsequently transferred to a detention center in Louisiana.
Rubio warned in his statement on May 7 that "new sanctions are expected in the coming days and weeks," suggesting that the pressure campaign against the regime's military conglomerate is far from over.
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